And the 2009 winner is ....
Quick 'n Tasty
We had a record 17 taste testers this year. Shakes were tested on Memorial Day, around 4 o'clock. Our very scientific method was followed (see sidebar) and all participants are highly trained shake-eaters. Six different shakes were tested. You may think that a raspberry shake is a raspberry shake. We beg to differ! We were, as usual, amazed at the variation among the shakes. The rankings this year, with comments, are as follows:
TASTE RANKINGS:
1. Quick 'n Tasty - good color, chunks of raspberries, fresh raspberries, meh
2. Hometown Drive-In - good, good color, chunks of raspberry, icy, ice chunks, poorly mixed
3. LaBeau's - nice flavor, me like, creamy
4. Merlins - thick, sweet, good, artificial flavor, fake taste & color, doesn't taste like raspberry
5. Bear Lake Pizza - milky, strong vanilla taste, waayy too sweet, yuck aftertaste, "no"
6. Lakeside Pizza - medicinal, syruppy, nasty, bad aftertaste
SPEED RANKINGS: (from the time of ordering to shake in hand)
1. Hometown Drive-In: 1 min. 43 seconds
2. Bear Lake Pizza: 2 min. 30 seconds
3. Quick N Tasty: 5 min.
4. LaBeau's: 6 min.
5. Merlin's: 6 min. 30 seconds
6. Lakeside Pizza: 12 min. 42 seconds (mixed up the order and forgot about us)
COST:
1. Quick N Tasty: $4.00
2. Hometown Drive-In: $4.05
3. Labeau's and Merlin's: $4.10
4. Lakeside Pizza: $4.27
5. Bear Lake Pizza: $4.33 (The most expensive and, interestingly, the SMALLEST shake.)
So Quick N Tasty has made it to the top of the leader board again. It was the best looking shake, we think, obviously made with real, fresh raspberries. However, it must be noted that there is some bad news. Several, 7 to be exact, of our tasters went to Quick N Tasty after our results to order their very own shakes from the winner. (The taste-testing feast just wasn't enough shake for these brave participants.) And sadly, our winner messed up 3 out of 7 of their orders. The shakes did taste good, though, they admitted.
A word about our fallen hero, Hometown Drive-in: Hometown has been our go-to shake place for a while now, due to all its previous wins. But this time, the shake was tragically under-mixed and a large chunk of frozen raspberries was found at the bottom of the shake cup. For shame. (And, though not part of this experiment, we were very disappointed with a peanut-butter cup shake we got there a while back. It was basically just vanilla soft serve with tiny flecks of what we think may have been peanut-butter cup, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Very flavor-less.)
CONCLUSION: Quick 'N Tasty is a good bet for (you guessed it!) a Quick and Tasty Shake! (And the least expensive, too!)
For full test results, click here.
Happy Shake Eating!
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11 comments:
we like the drama. so much suspense and excitement. um, and sorry to mix pork with raspberry shakes but... we forgot to tell you to drain SOME of the juice from the pork before adding the sugar. Hope it was delicious!!! We sure ate a lot of those burritos at the beach house. Much liked by the Cresaps. Thanks for the shake commentary. it's such a fun tradition. maybe one day we'll be lucky participants.
What I'm learning from this study is that you absolutley MUST repeat it every year. The quality of these establishments changes and you really have to redo. So glad you all are willing to jump on that tasty grenade for us. I think Clint and I are probably the only ones in the whole family who've never been to Bear Lake wity you guys. We really must correct that some day!
What a great tradition. I am glad I peaked at this blog. How fun! :)
What a great review. We are glad we have you in the family to put all of this together. Such a professional review. I am impressed. I am now craving a shake.
The quick and tasty has good shakes when everything goes right, but they often screw things up and arent real willing to fix it when it goes wrong. NEVER pay for food there. The burgers are tiny 1/8" patty's with super thin tasteles bacon, fries are overcooked. A horrid value for the food, and a crap shoot on the shakes. Highly recommend anywhere but the quick and tasty!
For the speed factor, do you consider how busy the restaurants are at the time? Because whenever I go to Bear Lake it always seems like LaBeau's is swarming with people (because our family thinks it's the best and apparently so does the rest of the world when we go, haha) and the other places don't have the same lines.
Anyway, we love us some raspberry shakes!
Thanks for the comments! The speed factor is calculated from the time we order until the time we receive the shake. Regarding LaBeau's speed, see the note in our 2008 post. There are crowds there partly because they're popular and partly because they're SLOW. Being busy is one thing, but they are not well-organized (eg; filling a huge order including sandwiches and fries before making a single shake. They should have one shake maker that is just cranking those things out!) That having been said, their shakes are consistently pretty good.
I want to weigh in on the speed factor comment as well. I have gone to Bear Lake every summer for over 20 years. LaBeau's is the original shake joint. That's where we always went. It was tradition. To this day, LaBeau's gets big crowds at least in part due to the traditions of its patrons. Which is fine. Everyone should go where they want. We started the Shake Rankings as a fun thing to do on our annual visits. They are double blind. We generally have between 12 and 20 participants. We don't particularly care who wins, nor do we know whose shakes we are voting on when we put in our votes. So, like V said, LaBeau's consistently ranks fairly well, but not the best. Plus it is generally slow. Years ago, I would have recommended LaBeau's hands down. 3 years ago, it would have been Hometown. The last few years, Quick and Tasty has really dominated. Its food has been very good too.
This is great. We read this as we trolled the main drag in Garden City. We all had a good laugh.
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