Triple XXX

NO, that's not the title of an adult movie!  It's the restaurant I ate at on Saturday in West Lafayette.

Triple XXX is a West Lafayette institution.  It opened in 1929 and was Indiana's first drive-in restaurant.  I think it might be a rule that in order to graduate from Purdue, you have to have eaten at Triple XXX at least once during your college career.

We have been coming to WL since July of 2007 when our daughter and son-in-law moved there to attend graduate school at Purdue, but Saturday was my first visit to Triple XXX.  Even before E and N made WL their home, I had heard of Triple XXX, thanks to Guy Fieri of Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Probably one of the reasons we hadn't made it to Triple XXX sooner is because my husband is a vegetarian.  He's a fairly good sport about going places where the only thing on the menu he can eat is French fries, but we try not to put him in that position too often.  Triple XXX is definitely a burger place.  If he wanted, he could have ordered a grilled cheese or deep-fried cod fillet, but that was it (aside from the breakfast items).  But one thing that George was looking forward to trying was the root beer.

Triple XXX got its name because when it first opened, it sold a brand of root beer called Triple XXX.  At one time there were over a hundred restaurants who were franchised to sell the root beer, but now the WL restaurant is one of the few establishments where you can find it.  The drink got it's name because Xs were used as a means of rating products -- one X = good, two Xs = better, and three Xs = best.  So according to that rating system, Triple XXX root beer is the best.  And it definitely was good!

We had root beer, French fries, and a Triple XXX chop steak with cheese.  Everything was good.  I wouldn't say that the chop steak was the best hamburger I've ever had (I'm still dreaming about the In 'n Out burger I had in San Francisco and Kreckel's hamburgers in Decatur, IL are amazing) but it was good.  Because I was still not feeling 100% after my ER visit on Thursday, I ordered my burger plain and only added a little ketchup.  I would have loved to have had a chop steak with bacon, cheese, and grilled onions, but I didn't want to end up at the ER at St. Elizabeth in Lafayette.

If you go to Triple XXX, make sure you have cash (they don't take credit or debit cards).  They do have an ATM machine, so you can always raid your bank account to pay for your meal.  The restaurant is opened 24 hours, except for a break from 8:00 p.m. on Sundays till 6:00 a.m. Mondays.