If you live in St. Louis and haven’t heard of Hi-Pointe Drive-In, you’re doing it wrong. If you live in St. Louis and have heard of Hi-Pointe Drive-In but haven’t been to Hi-Pointe Drive-In, go stuff yourself… with Hi-Pointe Drive-In. Right now.
It’s rare for restaurants that burst onto the scene to live up to the hype. Many of them prove to be no more than a fad, or a novelty that won’t make it into your regular rotation of eateries. But Hi-Pointe Drive-In absolutely blew me away and has kept me coming back for more over and over and over again.
I thought about expanding on all sorts of things before getting to the food, but instead I’ll just try to just sum up my non-food observations quickly so we can get to the good stuff faster.
The building does a wonderful job of standing out without being tacky. Don’t get me wrong, the sign with a big arrow made of light bulbs looks out of place on any other block, but next to the Hi-Pointe Theater, it feels delightfully old-school. You won’t miss the place when you drive by, but you also won’t feel like it’s just some cheap gimmick. The inside is minimalist, using large shapes and photos to invoke just a little bit of attitude. There could stand to be more seating, especially if weather has the outside seating area closed. Ordering is simple – tell the employee at the front of the line what you’d like, they write it down on a tray, you go to the cashier and tell them what you ordered. I am curious, though, what’s to stop someone from just telling the cashier that they ordered something cheaper than what the kitchen is actually making. There isn’t any cross-confirming that I can see. Though please, this blog encourages you to be a good person and not do that.
There’s something unexpectedly refreshing about a local restaurant doing nothing more than making food that tastes damn good. No fast food substitutes to cut costs, no forced “twist” or overbearing “theme” from a local restaurant, no new-age attitude or championing of specific ingredients. Just damn good-tasting food from people who love making food that tastes damn good. The shakes are made right in front of you with a good old-fashioned shake machine, and the Strange Donuts daily shake special reminds you of the first time you discovered how good it tastes to just shove all the Skittles in your mouth at once instead of one flavor at a time.
Everything at Hi-Pointe except the salads, which you shouldn’t be ordering anyways, is made without concern for calories. In the absolute best way possible. The mere existence of a sauce made specifically for the fries should tip you off to how seriously these guys focus on eyes-roll-into-your-head flavor, but you might still be surprised by how liberally and recklessly your burger/sandwich is sauced. I’ve often thought of myself as the One True Sauce Boss™ but Hi-Pointe has revealed unto me a Sauce Kingdom™. In the same way a fine wine and steak dinner can be selected to complement each other, sauces at Hi-Pointe dance and twirl together in harmony. Sometimes they excitingly tango, sometimes they romantically waltz, sometimes they do the twist together and sometimes they just treat your tongue like a mosh pit. In many cases, the food you ordered barely serves as anything more than a canvas on which the multiple sauces can paint. It’s truly beautiful.
I highly recommend the Taco Burger and Mitrailette sandwich, both of which can make hunger and hangovers disappear in an instant. If it’s your first visit, get the Taco Burger and dive headfirst into the Hi-Pointe experience. Practically every burger you’ve ever gotten has been “seasoned,” but you’ve likely never noticed much of a difference from one to the next. The Taco Burger will change that. Of course, it has more than one sauce decadently dripping off – and I actually like to add a bit of the fry sauce to the mix as well. But the patty itself has such rich and strong seasoning that the flavor still manages to cut through and join the party in your mouth. The chili-cheese and Cool Ranch Dorito seasonings mesh so well together that for a moment, you are convinced there are actually chili, cheese and Doritos on the burger.
Local beer on tap, melt-in-your-seat milkshakes made with local donuts and sometimes even booze, magnificent sauces, powerful burgers and tasty sides make Hi-Pointe Drive-In great. But what sets it over the top, to now becoming The Place that I tell out-of-town friends they must have while in St. Louis, is the specials.
The daily specials at Hi-Pointe Drive-In exude what the place is all about. While many of them are burgers, there is no theme, flavor or food type that they are trying to push or champion. It’s simply having fun with food and flavors. Burgers with pizzas for buns, tacos with a grilled cheese shell, chicken and waffles, sushi donuts… I could go on but I’d recommend just peaking through their Instagram page. Bask in the madness. Rejoice in the brilliance. If you’ve ever longingly watched Epic Meal Time videos and wanted to try an over-the-top Flavor Frankenstein made by pros, Hi-Pointe is the place for you.
The daily specials keep you guessing and keep you coming back. And no matter how wacky they sound, they're probably pretty damn good. Among others, I've had a crab cake sandwich, a burger with peanut butter and jelly on it, a sandwich with too many ingredients to count and a burger with Imo's pizzas for buns during my many visits to Hi-Pointe. And while it is always difficult to order anything besides my beloved Taco Burger, I've never been unhappy with the choice. Hi-Pointe is on a crusade to Make Eating Fun Again.
If you’re looking to make the most of a cheat day, get some greasy hangover cure food, eat something wild or celebrate Treat Yoself Day, make your way into Hi-Point Drive-In. I promise it will not disappoint. And when you do, be sure to invite me along, so I can have an excuse to go to Hi-Pointe yet again.