Unpopular Drive-In on the Way Out: See Ya Daly's

There's an article bemoaning our pending loss of Daly's Drive-In in Eastlake in the Post Intelligencer today (with accompanying blog item--probably both inspired by a slightly previous blog item from the Stranger) headlined "Popular drive-in on way out." The thing is, Daly's isn't popular. It should be, and it was, but it isn't.

Red Mill Burgers, say, the Phinney location, is popular. There's always a line out the door and it takes forever to get anything to eat. There are signs reminding you not to talk on the cell phone while you sit there waiting for your Anaheim pepper burger or whatever, but there's really nothing else to do. Does "no cell phones, please" mean no talking on the cell phone, or does it include texting, paging through pictures and thumb bowling? The burgers finally show up and they're good. Not earth-shattering, but good.

We have never had to wait in a line of any kind to order at Daly's, and Seattlest is a frequent customer. Maybe once we got stuck behind some old guy and his son's family who took an hour and a half to order salmon burgers and milkshakes, but usually it's straight up to the counter. Daly Double, fries, butterscotch shake, $0.75 debit card fee (might as well order it up front), and then we hit the pinball games with the quarters we pillaged from the hall table just for the occasion. If the pinball is occupied (or, more likely, we forgot the quarters) we can stare at the same old comics that have been plastered to the wall since some time in the 80's ("Waiting for a good man..." with the skeleton sitting there on the bench) or we can go way in the back and stare out over the lake. The food, when it comes is good. Not earth-shattering, but good, and the addition of a bunch of fish items gives it the edge over Red Mill.

And yet, the place is always empty. We attribute it to the "ungentrified atmosphere" the P-I recognizes in their article. An Urbanspoon user says, "The setting is a bit of a grease pit, but the food is top notch." The building's old. Sometimes there's a bucket catching drips in the middle of the dining room. The building next door (already torn down) was propped up over the bluff with a 4x4 or two, which seemed funny until you realized that the same is probably also true of the structure you're sitting in. The people who still go to Daly's are the guys who remember it from its heyday--probably some time in the 70's or 80's. That guy and his son's family ordering fish sandwiches and shakes? Used to eat at Daly's every day thirty years ago. Now they all live off Route 2 somewhere because it's as near as they can afford to live to Eastlake.

It isn't new news that Daly's is losing their location--Seattlest talked about it a year ago. It's a little bit of an indictment of the place's current "popularity" that only now are the daily papers taking note. The guys behind the counter have been telling us for a year that they're looking for a new location--preferably on Eastlake--and we hope they find something--preferably on Eastlake, but when the owners look at the current register receipts and the rent anywhere else in the area...the two ain't gonna match. Red Mill, with its line-out-the-door popularity, couldn't afford Eastlake today. Daly's might get lucky and find something affordable out on Route 2 with their customer base.