Johnny Rockets

I called the one in Glendale, NY, and they informed me it closed down 2 weeks ago.

Food was as good as could be, milkshakes were banging! I definitely recommend the bacon cheese fries! Yum! :q They did a little song and dance for us in the middle of our meal which shows how much the workers have and how great they get along together (don’t need to see employees talk about other employees behind their backs and in front of customers). Would definitely come back just for that 50’s burger joint feel again. :)

I am reading the reviews for this place and I am surprised that there are a lot of people giving stars based on the the cost of their burgers. That’s outrageous! Didn’t you look at the menu before you came into the restaurant? Why were you so ignorant? Are you dumb? Like seriously, Johnny Rockets I’ve been to in Toronto and Cancun is a franchise and the prices is what it is! If you don’t like it, there’s the door! But don’t be rating and hating on any restaurants based on price. From Fergie’s song, if you can’t live a glamorous life, «then take your broke a$$ home».
This is a fun place to be where everything is way back play back; the music is older than me and the décor says a glass bottle of coke used to be $ 0.05?! Yeah, that’s way back! At almost every table, there’s a jukebox that doesn’t work, it is just there for a décor, so don’t put money in there. They have plasma TV to entertain their customers, so they’re keeping up with time ;)
When I order from there, I usually get Route 66 and a strawberry-​banana shake. I enjoy spending time there with friends.

I stopped by on a weekday for a quick lunch and in need of some red meat. They do seem slightly understaffed, there were about 7 – 8 tables. But I got greeted pretty quickly and the waitress was friendly and seemed on top of things.
I got the single rocket burger. The table behind me was seated after me and got their appetizers before me (reading these reviews, I guess this is the norm). I got my burger a minute later. I enjoyed it. The first bite into the patty was slightly crispy and savory. Their ‘secret sauce” was a nice touch and the bun was fresh and nicely toasted. The large piece of iceberg lettuce was slightly droopy, but the size of it made up for it. The burger wasn’t too greasy and a decent size and quality for a $ 7 burger lunch.

I went to eat here on a whim on November 4, 2012. My wife saw the «Kids Eat Free Sat-​Sun 12−4pm» sign and we decided to give it a try since my daughter likes the happy face ketchup and mini hot dogs.
Upon entering, we had to wait a couple minutes to be seated. Our orders were taken quickly by waitstaff and the drinks were back within 5 minutes.
We ordered the Route 66 (Swiss, mushrooms) and I ordered the Philly Cheese-​steak and time was taken to ask what cheese (Swiss) and if I wanted mushrooms (important for later).
Our food took twenty minutes to come and my daughter was given her hot dogs and my wife was given a cheeseburger and I was given absolutely nothing. When I informed the waitress of the issue, she gave me my wife’s cheeseburger and said hot dogs and cheeseburgers seem so similar and that’s why she made a mistake. *Yeah… I’m scratching my head too now* Rather than try to make sense of it, I told her to take it back and return with our correct order. At least my daughter had the right items in front of her. I look at the kitchen counter to see if my order was already cooked and only saw 3 bacon cheeseburgers waiting for staff pickup.
She returns another 10 minutes later with my wife’s correct burger but told me I had to wait since my order was a cheese-​steak. I look at the kitchen and can still see the same 3 bacon cheeseburgers from 10 minutes ago. Yuck. I felt sorry for the poor customers who were waiting for them.
My daughter is finished and she asks to use the restroom. My wife brings her and I can clearly see my wife run away from the first bathroom and enter into another one. When she came back, my order finally arrived and I had to sit and eat while listening to my wife describe the nastiness of the bathrooms. She said she could see stains on the toilet seat of the original bathroom she entered. She then told me that the other bathroom had a clean seat but no wash-​napkins and stunk like a New Jersey gas station bathroom.
I was a cynic so I ran to check myself. Not only was she right, the bathroom had graffiti on the mirrors. Now, I’m used to graffiti but this stuff doesn’t exist in Forest Hills.
Tired of the fiasco, I asked for the check only to find my daughter was charged for her meal. *ERM. Kids eat FREE*. The same waitress apologized and offered me another check and thanked me for informing her of the mistake.
I don’t think I’m ever going to come here again. Why would you?

Giving my kids the option to eat here was my mistake. Once they decided, they were pretty set. The last time we ate at a Johnny Rockets was probably 3 – 4 years ago at Atlas Park (OK experience, singing/​dancing waiters.) so I thought I will let them try it again. Location is Forest Hills so it made me assume that the place will at least be decent. Wrong! [assume= «as_​» of «u» and «me»…so never assume :) ]
Upon entering, I saw the staff behind the counter; they seemed busy and were looking at us but nobody said anything. The sign says «wait for the hostess» so we waited, while making eye contact with staff who still didn’t say anything. Finally, one of them came over and we got seated. Later on, staff started being more welcoming to entering customers, yelling out «welcome to johnny rockets!». Why didn’t we get that?
BTW, there’s a «wet floor» sign by the entrance. With the tiled floors they have, it reminded me of a restroom floor after it’s been cleaned. Not exactly an appetizing thought when entering an eating establishment.
Jukebox music only, no dancing waiters…
A few of the booth seats had open, gaping tears (at least 5– 6 inches long) on the upholstery cover. I wonder if it even entered their mind to fix them. Maybe not, since the tears are that big.
I ordered bacon cheeseburger single @ $ 7.19. Patty was juicy, good amount of bacon but was missing a side, which I had to order separately. Cheesefries were $ 3.79 and the portion was quite small. Soda costs $ 2.49.
FYI, fries/​rings are starters so they were served first. When the main food came, we had to eat those by themselves. We usually like a bite of this and a bite of that… oh well.
I was curious because I love Cheeburger Cheeburger kids’ meals and wanted to compare. Here it costs $ 5.99 per meal — with fries (but we asked to switch to onion rings for one of them), and a drink (addtl. $ 1.49 — 1.89 if you want to change to a shake).
Aside from the cute ketchup faces, kid’s meals were pretty sad. 4 onion rings or 7 pieces of fries per kid! Unless they see it as portion control then I won’t argue but there’s less for our kids to share with us. :(
3 pieces of chicken for kid’s tenders meal. The mini burgers were a bit funny and sad at the same time. Bread reminded me of potato bread with meat that was literally ¼ of a regular burger. Very small and they didn’t even take the time to form the patty.
Verdict: Cheeburger’s kids meals are so much better.
Our server was at least nice and had a clean uniform on. I saw another server with a really dirty, stained apron on. you would think she was doing the butchering.
Won’t be returning to this location. and maybe to the others either. Just not worth it.

I actually just left the restaurant a few minutes ago despite the dismal reviews. I just wanted a quick burger and McDonald’s just didn’t fit the bill. Sigh.
Walk in, sign clearly indicted to wait for hostess but from other reviews I didn’t wait and instead asked the manager at the bar area (black shirt) if I can sit anywhere. At the time there were maybe 3 tables occupied. She was nice and pointed to the front saying the back area was closed. I make my way and sat in a huge booth as it was the Only clean one.
Another group arrived shortly after me and were tended to first by a young guy who seemed to hate his life. He finally got to me and asked if I had ordered. When I said no he proceeded to mumble some sort of greeting and I quickly placed my order. Then it gets ffunny. Two gentleman sit at the next booth and instantly the music is raised, and a bubbly girl comes put of nowhere and immediately greets, mentions specials and even adds her own suggestions. She sounded so high pitched as over the top I had to look. Instantly, their drinks followed (I was still waits on my shake at this point) Another customer walked in and was loudly greeted and welcomed. I look over at the two gentleman and them piece it together– their polo shirts clearly displaying the Johnny rockets logo. Sigh… Their food arrives and my shake finally comes. After another ten minutes I get my burger sans fries and my waiter asked me if had ordered
. They even did a song and dance they were clearly only concerned with impressing their ‘visitors’. Moral of the story? I guess next time I will have a seat with management, maybe I will get treated as less of a stepchild. Lol

This is what family’s went to in the 50’s to dine and have a good time… All I wanted was a burger and fries. This is totally not Americana diner food. It’s like the forgotten /​lost wars that are not documented in history books.

The food is like a worse then a sad kitten in a cage waiting to be adopted. I had layers of grease stuck on my face and fingers until I got home. I got the route 66 burger and the ½ rings+½ fries combo. Let me tell you, if I wanted to drink the fry cooking oil I would have taken my straw over to the deep fryer. No wonder the store in Washington sq park was closed for a while. They were taken over by rats who held the place hostage until they got real Swiss cheese. C’mon this isn’t the Munich ’72 Olympics where you promise a fun time and hold me hostage because of my expectations of a good burger.
Seriously, what this place could have been… Is what it should have been. Closed. If I want Americana burger n fries, I’m going to chee burger chee burger 4 blocks from there.

Took my niece and nephew there yesterday for lunch. The kids enjoyed the mini burgers, grilled cheese and fries. They said the best part was the strawberry shakes.
The waitstaff was very nice.
Great experience.

This place is total garbage. Went here today with my cousin to grab a late lunch. When we walked in the sign in the front said «Please wait for your host to seat you.» No one was there. We stood there waiting for someone to come to use but after about 10 minutes no one was coming even though staff clearly saw us. I walked up to the counter and asked the woman there if we could seat ourselves or if we have to wait for our host? She said we had to wait for the host and then said she didn’t know where he went.
She came over to where we were standing and said we would be seated as soon as someone cleaned the table. There were tons of empty seats but apparently we had to wait for this one dirty table. The guy cleaning tables was taking his sweet time cleaning one on the other side.
Finally we were seated in a booth instead. We placed our order and waited… and waited… My cousin had ordered a burger and I ordered a crispy chicken salad. I don’t understand what could possibly take that long. The waiter came and said he didn’t know what was taking so long either. When the food did arrive my salad looked like something I would toss together at home and the chicken was pathetic. The waiter didn’t offer salad dressing. I had to call him over and ask if he could bring some. It’s a salad, if someone orders it you ask what kind of salad dressing they would like along with it, common sense.
The place wasn’t even crowded. Less then half the seats were filled because it was raining outside, so they have no excuse for their despicable service. I come to this area quite often but definitely won’t step foot back into this sad excuse of a restaurant.

I used to go to Johnny Rockets a lot in the city by NYU before moving to Forest Hills and remembered it being a lot more fun and a lot more yummy. We decided to come here on a whim for dinner with some friends. The seating is a bit weird. You have to wait for them to seat you, but there was only one overwhelmed waiter and an obviously open booth that we couldn’t just walk to and had to wait until he finally realized we were at the door.
The burgers were greasy as you would expect. The shakes were actually as good as I remember, but unfortunately after we left, I got a pretty terrible feeling in my stomach and had to run home as fast as I could. Needless to say, I won’t be going back. For a burger on Austin street, you can probably find me at BareBurger instead.

I’ve been to a handful of different Johnny Rockets locations (Midtown Manhattan, Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio) and this is by far the worst location I have been to. No matter what time I’ve been there – a weeknight, a Saturday evening, a Sunday afternoon – the service has been pretty bad (forgotten side orders, huge wait between ordering and food) and the food hasn’t been much better (dry burgers, pathetic cheese fries, unpalatable onion rings, etc.). None of the jukeboxes at the tables work, either, and for a restaurant chain that is pretty much banking on its 1950’s atmosphere, this is a huge downer.
The only good thing I can say about them is they make a decent chocolate peanut butter milkshake.

The dude decided on this place, as it’s not too far from where he lives, and two, we were both craving burgers so off we went.
The way they handle the seating here is weird. There were visibly plenty of tables we could sit on but instead they made us wait like over 5mns to sit at a booth. Fine, sitting at a booth is always more fun but it seemed like they didn’t want to sit anyone on the tables. Weird.
Our waiter was friendly and informed us several times that our food was going to come shortly. The wait for our food didn’t seem that long but then again, we were engrossed in conversation.
The food is ok, as expected. I didn’t come here to get my mind blown by a good bacon burger. But I did like the fact that when you order a milkshake, you also get the extra bit. I love my chocolate milkshakes so the more, the better.
So…um…where’s the closest Shake Shack?

Came here a month or so ago because I wanted a milkshake and because I thought it’d be a really funny «American» experience for India-​born boyfriend. I warned him that we were not here for the quality of the food, and promised we’d never come back again. Thanks to my disclaimer, we ended up enjoying our meal.
The burgers, sandwich melt thing, and fries were pretty typical… greasy, cheesy, gluttonously delicious, and the smiley face ketchup plates they came with were a silly touch. The shakes were outrageous, and in a good way. I decided to keep things vanilla but boyfriend went a little wild with a mocha fudge shake. Both were thick and creamy. With the food, we couldn’t finish everything and happily drank the milkshakes on the way home.
The waitstaff was pleasant and they did a dance for us! I completely forgot that was part of the Johnny Rockets experience, and it totally added to the «what the?!» attitude that boyfriend had the entire time. I agree with Rashid M., though. They totally could have been more enthusiastic during the dance. Though to be fair, I’m not sure I’d be excited to boogie down in a paper hat in front of a few families and a couple on a date.

Lets be honest here. This is fast food. It has a nice set up and concept, and all the «wow isn’t it like the old times» feel, but in the end it’s fast food. You’re getting the same burger McDonalds feeds you or Wendy’s for double the price.
Wait, you say «no you get the fun performances from the staff!». Yes, cause that’s exactly why I want to pay the extra dollars. To see a bunch of waiters that could care less do a half ass choreographed routine that half don’t even know all t he steps too singing along to a song (a classic most times) that they don’t know the lyrics too. How do you screw up RESPECT? How do you get the CHORUS wrong on that song? You’re just spelling the word!
Save your money and go to McDonalds down the block.

There’s something about Johnny Rockets that I love. Is it the old fashioned diner look and feel? Yes, that’s probably it!
I’m a fan of their burgers and their chili fries are awesome!
One thing that I don’t like about this location is the service. It’s terrible. Every worker there looked like they wanted to shoot themselves. And would it hurt them to be a little more enthusiastic when they dance?
Service aside, I’ll definitely go back, specially if I’m in the area and looking for a cheap place to eat out.

Johnny Rockets is not gourmet food by any means but it sure does comfort and satisfy. I can only rate my regular favorites: Route 66 burger with caramelized onions, mushrooms and Swiss cheese is exquisite, and my usual peanut butter and chocolate shake is totally divine!
It’s a cute and fun spot with a 1950’s décor and atmosphere without having to deal with the hairy waiter from your usual diner.
They have a kid friendly menu and pretty much anyone will enjoy the food here.

I have a 6 year old so sometimes I go to crappy places.
Came here with boyfriend and baby makes three and he decided to «branch out» and order a philly cheesteak. He asks” Does it have peppers and onions?” Waiter” Yea Yea“
So we get our food– its johnny rockets I don’t have high expectations its cheap, its a burger, they cater to kids– the cheesteak was kinda small, and again I was told it sucked but no expectations. Burgers were edible.
Bill comes.
$ 3 for peppers and onions making the cheesesteak something stupid like $ 12.
I’m not going to fight over pennies, but seriously you suck and shouldn’t be charging more than a few dollars for anything on the menu you call food and we call crap.
Thanks for the stupid dance awkward girl with grease on your pants.

I came here after going to a crêpe place across the street.
Well it was late and so we sat down and talked. The waitress was very nice and since we didn’t order much… a 5 dollar plate and a coffee just chatted. As for conversation — the music was a bit too loud for the little amount of people there, besides my friend and I, there were maybe 2 other tables occupied and one at the bar. At that point you don’t need to be blasting oldies. Just have it chime away in the background.
I personally like the sounds of cooking and smelling fresh food being cooked. In the 50’s they didn’t blast music like that all the time either!
It wasn’t hard to have a conversation, just some songs were really loud and others were low.
Otherwise, food was tasty and hot.

I would frequently walk by Johnny Rockets glancing in to admire it’s festive retro 50’s décor. Last weekend, my wife and I stopped by for a late lunch, this being our second time in this eatery. The nostalgic Coca Cola decorations, booths with mini jukeboxes, bright red stools lining alongside the long stainless steel counter-​top with classic looking drink fountains took me to another era that I would see in the movies such as «Grease». Even the staff wore a cool classic white 50’s uniform motif which added to the eating experience.
I tried one of their Burgers which had a ¹⁄₃ lb beef patty with cheddar, lettuce and tomato, with a thick piece of bacon topped with a peppery sauce that came along with a side of fries. Overall it was pretty good and juicy. Mind you, they will not ask if you want it rare or well done unless you ask them to cook it that way. The french fries could have been cooked a little longer as it was fried lightly brown, but being the glutton that I am, I took the ones from my wife’s dish as well. She enjoyed her Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich but it was cooked a bit overdone. Overall, it was a good sized sandwich that was nice and tasty.
We ended our meal by sharing a plate of fudge brownie which was by far an incredible treat. It was kind of pricey at $ 4.95 but we had it with no reservations. I could not help thinking about that desert for most of the week, it was that good. We had a very friendly and helpful waitress named Lisa who made the dining experience a good one. The staff did a little dance and singing routine about every 20 minutes which was a nice feature, dancing to the tunes of Saturday Night Fever’s «Staying Alive» disco song. Though if I recall, the movie came out in the 70’s and disco wasn’t even around that era of time but who am I to nitpick. It is in good fun and we enjoyed our experience there. I would give the food 3 stars but the atmosphere made it an even 4.