Roy Rogers Breakfast Menu Ranked From Worst To Best
Whatever happened to Roy Rogers? Roy, the one-time King of the Cowboys, rode off into the sunset nearly a quarter-century ago, but the fast-food chain that bears his name may well be headed for the last roundup itself in the not-too-distant future. There are fewer than 50 locations remaining nationwide, most in the Mid-Atlantic region. The remaining restaurants are still hanging in there with a menu that offers a little bit of everything: roast beef sandwiches, burgers, and whole pieces of fried chicken as well as sandwiches. While their breakfast menu is a bit more limited, it, too, offers some options that you're not going to see at too many other fast food chains.
So how does Roy Rogers' breakfast stack up to the competition? It's hard to say since the restaurant usually gets left off such lists. Are reviewers unaware that Roy's is still offering a morning meal, or, indeed, that they are still in business? Well, those in the know say this underrated chain may be at its best at breakfast time. As one TripAdvisor user puts it, Roy Rogers' "menu is uneventful, however, their breakfast is really their best effort." Another concurs, calling it "a very good, relatively cheap, breakfast." That being said, however, some of Roy Rogers' breakfast offerings are better than others, and as their menu is a relatively short one, this allows us to rank every single one of them from the biggest disappointment to the most pleasant surprise.
12. Coffee
No matter what pluses Roy Rogers might have in the breakfast column, it has one major minus: Their coffee tends to be weak. Coffee is the one item that nearly everyone orders at breakfast, and some fast food restaurants have even tried upping their coffee game to compete with coffee-specific chains like Starbucks, with McDonald's McCafe being the best-known example. Unfortunately, Roy Rogers must have failed to get the memo.
One Trip Advisor user griped that Roy's wouldn't offer them a refund on the coffee: "Food is good. Coffee is TERRIBLE ... I had to buy a real coffee from the Sunoco the next door." Another Trip Advisor user, reviewing a different Roy Rogers, concurred with the thumbs-down verdict, saying, "Unfortunately their coffee was all bad ... at least the bathrooms were clean." It's especially unfortunate that both of the Roy Rogers locations reviewed were located at highway rest stops, so you know that coffee in such instances is sorely needed.
11. Breakfast Fries
Instead of offering hash browns, Roy Rogers opts for something it calls Breakfast Fries. The company describes this dish as "sliced and fried potatoes lightly dusted with salt," but we'd say that even on the website glamour shot they still don't look too appealing: weird oval-shaped brown discs that only vaguely resemble potatoes.
As to how they taste, it's pretty much as you'd expect from looking at them. They're hard, they're dry, they're bland. Okay, so they are made with real potatoes, but potatoes are nothing special unless you cook them right, and Roy Rogers' Breakfast Fries are cooked all wrong. We feel bad for this poor traveler who told Trip Advisor that when they visited the Roy's at the Walt Whitman Service Plaza on the Jersey Turnpike for lunch (at noon, no less), the restaurant had no standard fries available. The restaurant instead palmed off their "dried out breakfast potatoes" as an unsatisfactory side for an (also dry) burger.
10. Fruit Cup
The main problem with a fruit cup, whether it comes from Roy Rogers, a different fast food chain, or the Four Seasons, is that it's dull, dull, dull. We can't think of a single kind of fruit that isn't vastly improved by pairing it with a more exciting partner such as ice cream or cake or, okay, if you insist on being healthy, maybe some yogurt or a bowl of cereal. Fruit plus more fruit plus still more fruit is ... well, okay(ish), but not the kind of breakfast anyone's going to get too excited about.
The Roy Rogers fruit cup pictured on its website looks decent enough as far as fruit cups go, with red grapes, strawberries, and blueberries, in addition to chunks of melon. In reality, they go a lot heavier on the cheaper fruits, so it's more like a melon cup with maybe a few berries. And if you're thinking "Well, at least a fruit cup is hard to screw up," think again. One Yelp reviewer notes that a fruit cup ordered by their friend "was dried out and left out." Ick.
9. Biscuits & Gravy
Biscuits and gravy is a breakfast dish that's not to everyone's taste, and we're really not big fans of soggy biscuits swimming in gloopy white sauce. We will give Roy Rogers points for offering something that's a little bit out of the ordinary for a fast food restaurant. While there are a few regional breakfast chains such as Biscuitville and Tudor's Biscuit World that do specialize in this dish, it's not the kind of item McDonald's or Wendy's are going to be adding to their menu anytime soon.
Even if we were able to get past our dislike for biscuits and gravy, it seems Roy Rogers doesn't even manage a credible version of it. One Yelper complained that the serving size is small, which is probably just as well: "They stacked [the biscuits] on top of each other and [they] taste terrible." A Trip Advisor reviewer also found the dish to be of dubious quality, lamenting that they'd "bought biscuits and gravy at 9 Am on a Saturday," only to find that "the gravy was on the edge of being sour [and] the flavor was off."
8. Creamed Chipped Beef & Biscuit
Creamed chipped beef is a dish that has a certain nostalgic appeal to it — in fact, it's the kind of dish that Roy Rogers may well keep on their menu to appeal to a core demographic who would have fond memories of the original cowboy king, maybe even cheered him on at the movies during his cinematic heyday. Those youngsters of yore would have been of age to serve in the military during the Vietnam War era, at which point the dish nicknamed S.O.S., or "s[tuff] on a shingle," was in heavy rotation in chow halls.
If you're a fan of creamed chipped beef, Roy Rogers does make a pretty passable version, even if they use a buttermilk biscuit as the "shingle" rather than the traditional toast. One Trip Advisor user shares how this breakfast item "brought back memories" — good ones, it seems, as they go on to say, "The chipped beef was in a tasty gravy and very plentiful [and the] biscuit was tender."
7. Western Platter
If you are fond of creamed chipped beef and have a hearty appetite, then the Western Platter is going to be your best bet on Roy Rogers' breakfast menu. Along with the chipped beef on a biscuit, you also get a scoop of scrambled eggs along with a side of the breakfast fries which, okay, aren't great but at least help to fill up the plate (and your belly). While the Western Platter makes for a hearty meal, it's not too terrible, calorie-wise, coming in at just 608, so that's less than 1/3 of a 2000-calorie daily allotment for an entire meal even if you do add cream and sugar to your coffee.
As per this Trip Advisor review, the Western Platter is a fair-sized helping at a decent price and tastes pretty good, too. As they described it, "eggs well done ... [and] the cream chipped beef was very good." They did mention that "the potatoes could have been cooked a little more," but then, those breakfast fries are a known issue, and with any luck, Roy's will get around to addressing it someday. (And then it could fix the coffee; that would be great, too.)
6. Scrambled Egg Platter
If you have no fond memories of chow hall days and are thus not a big fan of S.O.S., Roy Rogers still has a breakfast platter for you — actually, two of them. The first of these is the savory-only Scrambled Egg Platter, where, as the name implies, scrambled eggs take pride of place. They are accompanied by a buttermilk biscuit, those meh breakfast fries, and your choice of meat: bacon, sausage, or a slice of Smithfield ham. If you find yourself just passing through Roy Rogers territory and are from a part of the country unfamiliar with country ham, we recommend that you give this local delicacy a shot. The very best way to eat it is to tuck it between the biscuit halves, thus making the classic breakfast sandwich known as the Virginia country ham biscuit.
One Trip Advisor user, who admittedly had low expectations for a fast food travel plaza breakfast, was won over by Roy Rogers' Scrambled Egg Platter, calling it "quite a surprise" in an entirely positive way. They praised the "generous portions of egg and potatoes," adding that "nothing was greasy." Lest you think they're damning this platter with faint praise, we remind you that this is not always a given for similar breakfasts — even in more formal dining establishments.
5. Pancake Platter
When it comes to breakfasts, there are two separate camps: savory and sweet. Most fast food breakfasts tend to fall into the former category, as it's easy for restaurants to repurpose some of the same items they use for the main menu to create breakfast sandwiches. Plus, it's generally pretty simple to scramble up a batch of eggs and cook breakfast meats on the same grill you use for burgers. Sweet breakfast items, however, are a whole separate thing, so not every place is going to offer something like pancakes. Roy Rogers does, however, and its Pancake Platter even pairs pancakes with bacon, sausage, or the Smithfield ham (we recommend this, even without the biscuit), so you get some savory to go along with your sweet.
While you may be a bit dubious about the idea of fast food pancakes, Roy Rogers actually manages to nail this simple-yet-not-always-easy dish. Customers in both Maryland (via Yelp) and Virginia (via TripAdvisor) have characterized them as delicious, and we'd have to concur. These buttermilk pancakes are light, fluffy, and served with both butter and maple syrup with a breakfast meat side (especially that ham!) that perfectly offsets their sweetness.
4. Ham, Egg, & Cheese Sourdough Sandwich
It's always hard to come up with an exact ranking on lists like this since there are a certain number of apples-to-oranges comparisons going on, but we're rating the breakfast sandwiches more highly than the platters because most of us tend to eat fast food breakfast items on the run (or, more literally, in the car). Breakfast sandwiches, there's no denying, are far more portable and less messy than platters. These are better suited to eating at a table, but Roy Rogers isn't known for their dine-in ambiance, despite the cheerfully cheesy western décor.
Speaking of cheese, next up is the Ham, Egg, & Cheese Sourdough Sandwich, which is quite good as fast food breakfast sandwiches go. The good thing about sourdough as the base for a sandwich of scrambled egg, cheese, and ham (or bacon, or sausage, should you so choose, though the sandwich is listed on the menu as ham) is that it's a good, sturdy bread that's able to take the weight. Another thing we appreciate is that they're using Monterey Jack, a somewhat unusual cheese choice for a fast food breakfast sandwich.
3. Ham, Egg, & Cheese Crescent Sandwich
If the sourdough sandwich is so unique, why, then, you may ask, are we putting the far more common croissant (or "crescent") sandwich higher up on the list? It's not like Roy Rogers' croissant is a particularly outstanding one — it's pretty good but, like all fast food croissants, it does tend to get a bit soggy under the weight of all the toppings. The reason for our ranking is simply this: We prefer the buttery, light texture of the croissant sandwich over the flavor of sourdough bread.
While Roy's is offering bacon and sausage as options once again, we feel that the ham works much better with this Ham, Egg, & Cheese Crescent than do these greasier meats. The one thing we're not so happy about is that the cheese is American, but you can always try asking if they'll make it with Monterey Jack instead.
2. Ham, Egg, & Cheese Biscuit Sandwich
The very best Roy Rogers breakfast sandwich is the one that's made with a biscuit, simply because of the biscuit. While it's a tossup between the biscuit and the croissant (non-fast food, in the case of the latter item) as to which is the best standalone breakfast bread, biscuits have the edge when it comes to being used as a platform for other food items because they are less delicate and unlikely to become soggy or collapse. (There's a reason why croissants and gravy are not a thing, and probably never will be.)
This breakfast sandwich, too, is made with a neatly-folded scrambled egg square topped with a cheese slice — sadly, Roy Rogers opts for American here, too, but again we'd probably ask to see if we could get Monterey Jack. Here you also get a choice of sausage, bacon, or ham — and if you have your heart set on either of the first two, then the biscuit is probably your best bet since biscuits are able to soak up a little grease without it really affecting their texture. Still, our own personal preference for this sandwich is to get it with ham, then remove the egg and cheese, roll them up, and eat them separately as a cylindrical omelet. Saving the best for last, we then savor our DIY secret menu ham biscuit.
1. Biscuit
Top of our list is a truly minimalist breakfast option, a great choice for those of us who prefer to start the day with something fairly light. These southern-style buttermilk biscuits, which also accompany Roy Rogers' fried chicken, are something the chain knows how to do right. They're light, they're fluffy, they're flaky and buttery and ever-so-slightly salty, and they are just big enough to satisfy without being overly filling. While Roy Rogers offers their biscuits with a choice of strawberry or grape jelly, we prefer them with nothing but butter. When accompanied by a cup of Roy's not great, but passable-in-a-pinch coffee, they make for an all-American continental breakfast. (North America is a continent, too!)
As if we didn't already love Roy Rogers' biscuits enough, they're even endorsed by AEW wrestler Brian Pillman Jr. Pillman, in a 2019 tweet about trying Roy Rogers' fried chicken for the first time, declared that the "biscuits were top notch," and he's All Elite so he ought to know a thing or two about it. As fellow AEW star Chris Jericho pointed out in "Fast Foodies," pro wrestlers and sports entertainers alike work odd hours and spend a lot of time on the road, so fast food is something they know well.