Last updated on February 19th, 2024
The Dari-ette closed.
An unexpected luncheon date at work this summer brought me to the Dari-ette in Saint Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.
This is truly a Wayback Machine experience. I’m sure there were places like this when I was a kid, but not that I knew about. Maybe I grew up in the wrong place. . . or maybe I’m just not old enough.
The Dari-ette is an old-fashioned drive-in (the drive in stands are still there, but there is no drive-in service :-( which REALLY would have qualified as a Wayback Machine experience) with ice cream, burgers, hot dogs, and Italian American specialties. Yeah, Italian. The pasta is decent and the red sauce quite good. Bring your own Parmesan cheese and ignore the garlic bread in favor of a malt and you’ll have a really nice Italian American lunch for a minimal price.
While the colleague who introduced me to this Saint Paul landmark will happily drive across town to eat here, that seems a bit extreme. I mean, the food is decent and inexpensive, but how often do you want to risk getting caught in a drive-by Italian diner?
(I’m sure Mr. Peabody would have a good pun to end this story. Unfortunately, he is unavailable at the moment.)