Critic's Review
I saw the Fish Sandwich on a TV commercial and sometimes marketing works. Basically fish and chips on a bun without the chips. The restaurants charge $15 for this; I wanted to see what I got for $5.69.
Drive in's are slower than usual these days, so I got here at about 3:30pm to avoid the wait. They apparently have walk up service for the homeless.
The first setback was the No Credit Cards sign. Great. I haven't bought anything with Cash since March. But luckily I had cash on me. I ordered the fish sandwich for $6.09 with tax.
When I got to the window, yet another sign saying you need exact change. I had pennies but I didn't have $6 even. No problem; the sign was just in case they ran out of change. You can get away with stuff like that in a "pandemic".
I went straight home so the sandwich was still hot. It didn't say fish anywhere on the box so I was worried they might have given me the wrong thing. Those order boxes are kind of scratchy without the masks.
Opening the box revealed a pretty good sized sandwich. Barely fit in the container.
A pretty good sized piece of fish. Nothing in the bag; no fork or extra tartar sauce. Just napkins. And you will need napkins.
I spread out the tartar sauce a bit and dug in.
This sandwich was not constructed for eating. Shredded lettuce, tomato; there was a pickle in there. Very hard to eat.
But pretty good. I added a little salt; nothing fast food-like about this except for the shredded lettuce. Whatever process they use to cook the fish is foolproof; perfectly cooked fish. It reminded me of Arthur Treachers, a favorite off-campus food trip with I was in college.
Conclusion
There was absolutely nothing wrong with this fish sandwich. This was light years better than the crap I got at Bo's Beach for $20.
It's a sad commentary when fast food is better than what you get at a restaurant. Welcome to Fort Lauderdale.
Update 2/12/20
I got a roast beef and cheese sandwich here to compare to the new Top Round Roast Beef restaurant; it was better than I expected, and still a good value at $3.99. You can see the review there.
Review 4/20/18
I hadn't been to an Arby's since I was a pre-teen; I think my Mom took me once back at a time when they only had roast beef sandwiches. Arby's has always been fast food, and I don't eat much fast food anymore. But lately they've invested in marketing; and some of the stuff on their commercials looks halfway decent. This week's special is 2 Gyros for $6. How bad could they be?
Gyros used to be street food; there used to be a place at the beach where I'd make a special trip to get a properly made Gyro with tangy tzatziki sauce. But the sold the place and opened the uninspiring Trata Greek restaurant, where you can only get a Gyro at lunch as a platter for $10. So I've been doing without Gyros.
The only Arby's in Fort Lauderdale is in an area that has become the worst traffic location in the city. It's on E Sunrise between "the bends", which is a stop and go traffic jam all day long. If you're traveling South you simply can't go to Arbys unless you know the back way.
They have a drive through, but I wanted to order inside to get the full experience. Be careful parking in this one-way area because the only way out is one-way onto Sunrise and turning around isn't easy. You want to exit the rear exit so you can get back to Sunrise in the right direction.
Make no mistake about it; Arby's is a fast food restaurant from head to toe. I ordered at the counter with a simple request; I ordered a Greek (lamb) and a roast beef gyro, just to try it. I asked for "sauce on the side", which ended up throwing the place into complete turmoil. Apparently there's no button for sauce on the side on the POS, so it had to be chain walked into the kitchen. My receipt said "No Greek Seasonings"; is that what I asked for? The guy working the KDS shouted back; No sauce on the Sandwich, put it on the side. Banter ensued about "seasonings". I thought they had it worked. out.
When I got the bad I made sure that they gave me the sauce. Ok. It looked ok.
But when I got home and opened the bag, it was clear that they'd left off the "seasonings". I went to Arby's site to see what the seasonings were "Lemon, Oregano, Salt, Pepper"; I had those things, so I made my own.
The fast food tomatoes weren't going to work for me, but look how cheap they were with the red onions. Seriously? I tasted the roast beef first.
Nothing going on here. Why would I want to eat roast beef on pita bread with tzatziki sauce? It was just a stupid idea.
The Greek Gyro looked like something I could work with.
I tasted the tzatziki sauce; it was way too salty with not enough cucumber to balance it. In fact I'm not sure there was any actual cucumber in it. Unfortunately, I didn't have any cucumber so I couldn't correct it.
I did have a ripe tomato and red onion. The gyro provided simply wasn't edible to me.
The Gyro meat was fine; no worse than the stuff they serve at the bad pizzerias. The pita was not oiled and gilled however; they claim it's "warm" but they don't warm them properly.
I didn't even eat the roast beef Gyro. I had a bit of the roast beef on it's own but decided it wasn't good enough to finish.
Conclusion
I'm not sure what my expectations were, but the hope that I could get a decent Gyro at Arby's was highly misguided. If you're just looking for some calories, the Greek is edible fast food; but the sauce isn't good and the sauce is the entire point of a Gyro. The roast beef (and turkey) offerings are contrived and ridiculous; stay away from anything but the Greek.
There are just small very tough pieces of meat and drowning in souce.
I will never go back, waste of money..