A Midwest favorite for over 70 years! Stop in for a Legendary Burger, Original Runza® Sandwich, Famous French Fries, Double Dipped Onion Rings, Salads, Ice Cream & Shakes, and more!
Runza® is a registered trade/service mark of Runza National, Inc. © 2022 Runza National, Inc.
Fast-food chain known for namesake German sandwiches, plus burgers, onion rings & crinkle-cut fries. Based on 394 reviews, the restaurant has received a rating of 3.9 stars. Price $
✔️ Dine-in ✔️ Drive-through ✔️ No delivery
Address:
1108 S 16th St, Clarinda, IA 51632
Phone: (712) 542-1542
Hours
| Sunday | 10:30 AM–9 PM |
| Monday
(Labor Day)
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10:30 AM–8 PM
Holiday hours
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| Tuesday | 10:30 AM–9 PM |
| Wednesday | 10:30 AM–9 PM |
| Thursday | 10:30 AM–9 PM |
| Friday | 10:30 AM–9 PM |
| Saturday | 10:30 AM–9 PM |
Menu
| Combo Meals | |
| Original Runza® Sandwich Meal The sandwich that started it all – in a Combo Meal. |
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| Cheese Runza® Sandwich Meal Our beloved Cheese Runza® Sandwich, paired with fries, rings or Frings™ and your choice of drink. It’s the one you love. |
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| Swiss Mushroom Runza® Sandwich Meal Here’s the deal with the Runza® Sandwich: each one starts out as an Original, then we slice it open and add whatever ingredients you choose – in this case delicious Swiss cheese and flavorful mushrooms. They’re made when you order, not when we open. Try one of these delicious, made-just-for-you beauties with some fries and a drink. |
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| Cheeseburger Meal Have you ever seen the inside of an industrial freezer? Because this cheeseburger hasn’t. It’s fresh, made by hand and topped however you want. Add one of our world-famous sides and a drink and you can’t go wrong. |
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| Double Cheeseburger Meal You’re gonna look at our double cheeseburger and do a double take. Did we just double the fresh ground beef and ingredients from our regular cheeseburger? You bet we did. So grab a side and a drink and treat yourself to the #3, on the double. |
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| Bacon Cheeseburger Meal You’re not even reading this, are you? There’s a picture of one of our delicious cheeseburgers topped with bacon over there and you can’t look away, can you? We could say anything right here and you wouldn’t know. One time a unicorn came through our drive-thru. See? You didn’t even read that. Keep looking at that bacon, friend. Then order this meal, with fries or rings and a drink. |
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| Swiss Mushroom Burger Meal It’s a special moment when you hear those magic words you’ve longed to hear: “Your Swiss Mushroom Burger, Frings™ and ice-cold Pepsi are ready.” So beautiful. Brings a tear to our eye, honestly. |
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| Chicken Strips Meal These strips were made for dippin’, and that’s just what they’ll do. Pick up a side of Buffalo sauce, Honey Mustard or our homemade Ranch, and take your strips for a dip. You can also dip your crinkle-cut fries! Or hand-sliced onion rings! Leave the drink alone though. Let’s not go crazy here. |
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| Jr. Chicken Wrap Meal My name is chicken and I’ve got the flow With tasty ranch or buffalo All held together in a big tortilla Wait a second nothing rhymes with “tortilla” Oh, Chicken “Wrap.” Not chicken “rap.” Well, we already wrote that rap and we’re not deleting it. We’re going to sing it while we have a delicious Ranch or Buffalo Jr. Chicken Wrap, your choice of side and a drink. |
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| Fish Sandwich Meal For a limited time each spring, the North Pacific Cod sandwich answers the age-old question, “Does Runza® have a fish sandwich?” It’s a seasonal favorite, paired with our beloved crinkle-cut fries or hand-sliced onion rings, and a drink. |
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| Grilled Chicken Sandwich Meal If you like choices, you’ll love this meal. First, choose from our five grilled chicken sandwiches: Deluxe, Buffalo, Smothered, Spicy Jack or BBQ. Then, choose crinkle-cut fries, hand-sliced onion rings, or Frings™ (fries and rings together). Finally, choose any drink you want. All that choosing will make you really hungry but, oh wait, good news, you’ve got this delicious meal to eat now. |
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| Runza® Sandwiches | |
| Original Runza® Sandwich Every Runza® Sandwich starts out as an Original: a perfect blend of spices to season the ground beef, mixed with cabbage and onions, inside bread that we bake at our store every morning. Sure, you can add toppings. But do you really need to? |
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| Cheese Runza® Sandwich We take our incredible Original Runza® Sandwich and bake it up fresh – then we slice it open and add American cheese right when you order it. It’s our most popular Runza® Sandwich, with the cheese melting over that perfectly-seasoned ground beef and cabbage. |
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| Swiss Mushroom Runza® Sandwich The first time someone at Runza® added delectable Swiss cheese and mushrooms to their Runza® Sandwich, we tried to stop them. “That’s too much flavor!” we warned. And now look at us. Fully embracing the Swiss Mushroom Runza® Sandwich. We’ve changed. We’ve grown. And we recognize a good sandwich when we taste one. |
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| Spicy Jack Runza® Sandwich Do you ever get so excited to eat something that you bite into it before it has sufficiently cooled off? That’s the worst. Unless that something is an incredible Spicy Jack Runza® Sandwich, with its fiery ingredients and fresh-baked bread. In that case, it’s totally worth a premature bite. |
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| Southwest Runza® Sandwich We’ll level with you: this is essentially a taco masquerading as a Runza® Sandwich. No two ways about it, just look at those ingredients. Seasoned ground beef, Cheddar cheese, salsa, even tortilla strips! Who are we kidding? This is a full-fledged taco, in Runza® Sandwich camouflage. And also, it tastes amazing. |
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| Cheeseburger Runza® Sandwich One day, a customer was having a tough time choosing between a cheeseburger and a Runza® Sandwich and we jokingly suggested he “just have both at the same time.” And that guy was like, “Do it.” And we all had a good laugh. But then we realized that putting all of our beloved cheeseburger toppings into our world-famous Runza® Sandwich was actually delicious. So now who’s laughing? |
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| BBQ Bacon Runza® Sandwich We realize it’s not even fair to make the Runza® Sandwich this much better. Who do we think we are, adding crispy bacon, Swiss cheese and BBQ sauce to a sandwich that’s already completely irresistible? The nerve of some people. |
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| Legendary Homemade Burgers | |
| Cheeseburger You can’t have a burger without cheese! Well you can actually, that’s a “hamburger” and we serve those, too, and they’re delicious. But if you like our juicy, ¼-lb burgers and you like American cheese melted perfectly over the top of it, you can’t go wrong with our classic cheeseburger. |
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| Double Cheeseburger What’s better than our ¼-lb cheeseburger, topped with melted American cheese and fresh ingredients? Two of them. Together. On one delicious fresh-baked bun from Rotella’s bakery in Omaha. |
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| Swiss Mushroom Burger There’s a reason the Swiss Mushroom Burger is a fan favorite among Runzatics®. It’s probably the Swiss cheese melted over the 100% fresh hamburger patty. Or the seasoned-to-perfection mushrooms. Or the creamy mayo. Or the fact that “Swiss” is just a fun word to say. OK, correction, there are many reasons the Swiss Mushroom Burger is a fan favorite. |
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| Bacon Cheeseburger reat news for anyone who loves bacon! Oh wait, everyone loves bacon. Well, great news for everyone! Our crispy bacon is bursting with flavor, making it the perfect compliment to a juicy, fresh, never-frozen, 100% ground beef Runza® cheeseburger. |
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| Spicy Jack Burger The Spicy Jack Burger was created by our Facebook fans! That means it’s the most productive thing to come out of Facebook since, well, ever. You’ll Like the Pepper Jack cheese, Comment on the jalapenos and elect not to Share the bacon, all while enjoying the perfect amount of kick from a delicious Runza® burger. |
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| BBQ Bacon Swiss Burger Saddle up, partner. The tasty southwestern kick of our BBQ Bacon Swiss Burger will have you calling groups of people “ya’ll” and purchasing a pair of leather chaps in no time. What’s that? You already own leather chaps? Well good for you. That’s none of our business. |
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| Hamburger Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Try our classic hamburger, with ¼-lb of fresh ground beef, topped however you want it, surrounded by a fresh-baked Rotella’s bakery bun. Now wasn’t that easy? |
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| Jr. Cheeseburger It’s a little version of our regular cheeseburger, in case you’re just a little hungry. Same fresh ground beef, same flavorful ingredients, just in a pint-size package. Kind of adorable when you look at it, isn’t it? Just sittin’ there all cute and delicious. |
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| Jr. Swiss Mushroom Burger This compact version of one of our most popular burgers packs just the right amount of flavor for a smaller appetite. It is not, as the name suggests, the biological son of the regular Swiss Mushroom Burger. We don’t even know how that would work. |
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| Sides | |
| Crinkle-Cut French Fries Why do we use crinkle-cut French fries instead of regular fries? Well, we could tell you that it’s because they hold ketchup better, or that it makes our made-to-order fries easier to grip, or that it increases the “potato-ness” of each fry. But the truth? They look like tiny potato accordions, and that brings us joy. |
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| Hand-Sliced Onion Rings Other restaurants’ onion rings come frozen, in a bag. Our onion rings come from a bag of, well, actual onions. Then we slice ‘em by hand, and, sorry… we’re tearing up a little over here… we’re just so proud! Oh wait, no, we’re crying because of all the fresh-cut onions, which we then double-dip in our homemade breading. Excuse us, we need a moment to collect ourselves. |
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| Frings™ You know when you start to say one thing, but then think another thing, and it comes out as some weird combination of words? “How are you going today?!” DANG IT. Well that’s how Frings™ were invented. We started to say we wanted some fries, then decided we wanted onion rings, and a confused employee put them both in the same bag and it turned out to be pretty much the best accidental idea of all time. |
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| Garden Fresh Salads | |
| Southwest Chicken Salad Taco had a dream. To one day shed his shell and become… a salad. The others would mock him. “But you’ve got bold southwestern flavors and tortilla strips for crying out loud! You can’t be a salad!” But Taco persevered, and believed in himself, and now we are proud to present you with the Southwest Chicken Salad which is, let’s be honest, pretty much a chicken taco on lettuce. |
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| Sweet Berry Chicken Salad Dried cranberries popping off fresh greens. A perfect complement of rich Feta cheese and walnuts. And creamy Poppyseed dressing. We didn’t invent the idea of putting fruit on a salad, but whoever did should win, like, the Nobel Prize for Salad. |
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| Variety | |
| Chicken Strips You can dip our 100% all-white meat, juicy chicken strips in your choice of sauces, like Buffalo, homemade Ranch, Southwest Ranch and more. Around here, that’s a little maneuver we like to call the “Strip & Dip.” |
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| Jr. Ranch Chicken Wrap Let’s do some math: 1 Chicken Strip + 1 Flour Tortilla + 1 Delicious Flavor Combo = 1 Junior Chicken Wrap from Runza® Ranch: Homemade Ranch | Shredded cheddar | Iceberg lettuce Well done. Now go have one as a snack. You’ve earned it. |
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| Jr. Buffalo Chicken Wrap Let’s do some math: 1 Chicken Strip + 1 Flour Tortilla + 1 Delicious Flavor Combo = 1 Junior Chicken Wrap from Runza® Buffalo: Buffalo sauce | Homemade Ranch | Shredded cheddar | Iceberg lettuce Well done. Now go have one as a snack. You’ve earned it. |
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| Jr. BLT Wrap Looking for a wrap without a chicken strip? Here you go! Classic BLT ingredients wrapped up in a flour tortilla. |
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| Popcorn Chicken Does the perfect snack exist? It does now, and it is poppin’! You can dip your 100% all-white meat popcorn chicken in your choice of sauces, like BBQ, homemade Ranch, Southwest Ranch, and more. We like to call this the “Pop & Drop” around here. |
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| Grilled Chicken Sandwiches | |
| Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich It’s all in the name – the classic chicken sandwich. |
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| Deluxe Grilled Chicken Sandwich Simple, fresh, flavorful ingredients. It’s what you’d come to expect from Runza®. But we called this one the “Deluxe” Grilled Chicken Sandwich to make it sound fancy, so feel free to lift a pinky and call people “Gov’na” when you eat it. |
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| Smothered Grilled Chicken Sandwich When other restaurants want to create a big, hearty, flavorful sandwich, they do very silly things like replacing the buns with fried chicken. But we opted to create a big, delicious sandwich by combining big, delicious ingredients: Swiss cheese, tons of mushrooms and grilled onions. No need to double down. |
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| Buffalo Grilled Chicken Sandwich We took our 100% all-white meat juicy chicken sandwich and let it fall in with the wrong crowd. You’ve got Buffalo sauce over here making people’s eyes water with its flavorful kick, while homemade Ranch puts people into an “Oh man that was good” coma. And there’s chicken. Just sitting there, all delicious, wasn’t even trying to start anything. |
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| BBQ Grilled Chicken Sandwich “Hey, guy, these 100% all white-meat grilled chicken sandwiches you made for our neighborhood potluck are pretty fantastic. Savory barbecue sauce and Swiss cheese? You’re the man!” You nod, crumple up the Runza® wrappers and slide them discreetly into the trash. |
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| Spicy Jack Grilled Chicken Sandwich Little ditty, ‘bout Spicy Jack and Diane Two American kids growin’ up, in the Heartland Jack is gonna be a, delicious all-white meat chicken sandwich You’re gonna eat it so fast, it’ll practically vanish These were John Cougar Mellencamp’s original lyrics. While they weren’t right for the song, they are remarkably fitting for our delicious Spicy Jack Chicken Sandwich. |
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| Kids Meals | |
| Jr. Burger Kids Meal Children emulate everything you do. So it’s natural for them to want their own little version of the Runza® hamburger you’ve loved your whole life. Pick up a Junior Hamburger for Junior, with their choice of side (fries, rings, Mandarin oranges or applesauce) and a drink. |
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| Original Runza® Sandwich Kids Meal Trick your child into eating cabbage with the Mini Runza® Sandwich! With our blend of secret spices and fresh ground beef, they won’t even know it’s in there, and then, “Boom!” they like a new vegetable. Plus, they get their choice of side (fries, rings, Mandarin oranges or applesauce) and a drink. Everybody wins! |
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| Chicken Strips Kids Meal You know, kids, when we were your age the chicken strips were only 99% all-white meat, we could only have one side (coal) and we were lucky if there was water to drink. And now look! 100% all-white meat chicken strips, your choice of side (fries, rings, Mandarin oranges or applesauce) AND a drink? You young’ns have it way too easy. |
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| Popcorn Chicken Kids Meal Made for those that like to jump around and have a meal that wants to do the same. All-white meat popcorn chicken, your choice of side (fries, rings, Mandarin oranges, or applesauce), AND a drink? You’re sure to have a meal that is poppin’! |
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| Desserts | |
| Premium Chocolate Ice Cream I scream, you scream, we all scream, “Let’s get a delicious ice cream cone from Runza®! Choose a cone or dish, then scream about it all you want. |
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| Premium Vanilla Ice Cream I scream, you scream, we all scream, “Let’s get a delicious ice cream cone from Runza®! Choose a cone or dish, then scream about it all you want. |
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| Premium Twist Ice Cream I scream, you scream, we all scream, “Let’s get a delicious ice cream cone from Runza®! Choose a cone or dish, then scream about it all you want. |
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| Chocolate Shake You want some fries with that shake? Well go ahead! Because in addition to this delicious, creamy vanilla shake, we also serve French fries. Available in mini, regular, or large sizes. |
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| Vanilla Shake You want some fries with that shake? Well go ahead! Because in addition to this delicious, creamy vanilla shake, we also serve French fries. Available in mini, regular, or large sizes. |
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| Strawberry Shake You want some fries with that shake? Well go ahead! Because in addition to this delicious, creamy vanilla shake, we also serve French fries. Available in mini, regular, or large sizes. |
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| Cappuccino Shake You want some fries with that shake? Well go ahead! Because in addition to this delicious, creamy vanilla shake, we also serve French fries. Available in mini, regular, or large sizes. |
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| Chocolate Chip Cookie If you give a Runzatic® a soft, gooey, chocolate chip cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk. And we serve milk so that works out pretty great! |
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| Chocolate Sundae Whoa whoa whoa. You can have a chocolate sundae immediately after devouring a fresh, homemade Runza® meal? Is this even legal? |
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| Caramel Sundae You can pronounce it “care-uh-mell” or you can pronounce it “car-mell” or you can just walk up and point to it on the menu and say “THAT ONE!” Either way, we’ll serve you up one of these delectable desserts on the double. |
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| Cookie Dough Sundae The Cookie Dough Sundae is a sundae topped with a delicious treat that, when baked, turns into a separate and equally delicious treat. That’s a lot of delicious treats. Maybe too many. Nah, who are we kidding, you’ve earned it. Grab one after your next big, hearty, homemade Runza® meal. |
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| Turtle Sundae If you order a Turtle Sundae, we will bring it out to your table really slowly. Like a turtle! Everyone will have a good laugh, but after a few minutes you can just be like, “OK we get it, but please bring me that before it melts.” And we will. Because no one should have to wait for ice cream. |
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| Drinks | |
| Pop You’ll notice we’re calling it “pop,” not “soda.” That’s because we’re in the Midwest and it’s the right thing to call it. You can march in here and order a soda and we’ll give you one because the customer is always right, but don’t push it. |
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| Fresh-Brewed Iced Tea You guessed it, even the ice tea at Runza® is made fresh. We brew it ourselves, right here in the store, and it makes the perfect complement to one of our fresh-made Runza® meals. |
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| Hiland Dairy Milk It does a Runzatics®’s body good. Our milk comes from local source Hiland Dairy, and can be ordered in Kids Meals – and grown-up meals, too. |
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| Aquafina Bottled Water Our age-old, top-secret recipe for water calls for two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Don’t tell anyone! Actually we serve delicious, cool, refreshing Aquafina water, but we’re pretty sure they use the same recipe. |
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Reviews
Donald Peck
Our first visit to a Runza restaurant. I had the burger and fries. The burger was fresh ground and not a frozen patty. It was tender and juicy and not greasy. Fantastic tasting. Wife had a chicken salad and said it was excellent.
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Nasir Khan
I happened to be in Clarinda and had never heard of Runza so I decided to stop by and try it out.
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Shayler Levine
Pretty fast and quick service. The double cheese burger was very well put together and had enough ketchup and pickles for the burger. The fries were pretty good but had probably 1/4 of the. that were burnt. You may want to check your receipts because one states you are in Iowa and the other states you are in Nebraska.
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Tekail Wentwood
Awesome place. Hubby and I shared the Pork Tenderloin meal w/ onion rings. Food hit the spot, service was great. And atmosphere? Well, we were the only ones there at the moment. 🙂
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Elizabeth Knierim
Fries were fresh. Sandwich and onion rings were cool when we got them. Service was great and the so was the atmosphere.
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Seger Mace
Food was great and the staff were very friendly. I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone in the area.
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Susan Noonan
Drive thru, food was hot and tasty. Had a Mushroom and Swiss Runza with Frings (onion rings and crinkle fries), and large ice cold lemonade to finish it off. Long line in front and back of me for 2 PM, but it moved fast.
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Jeff Peters
Stop here if you are ready to experience a Midwest culinary treat of ground-beef, cabbage, onions, and seasonings in a yeast dough bread pocket sandwich at the only probable franchise location in Iowa.
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Jeff Davis
The best fries ever!! The burgers are great. You can tell the meat is fresh and the people are friendly.
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Melissa Davis (Glitter baby)
Order has been wrong few times and fries not fresh. They put all my ranch and ketchup packets all on top of the fries and onion rings please don’t do that !
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