Ott’s Drive In

Small town dinner with a simple menu. Fast food with a friendly face that seems to be extremely popular with locals! I tried pancakes and eggs… Very good and classically American. Our server was sweet and helpful. I’m glad we went.
It’s not a fancy place, so I didn’t have high hopes. But man, the water was nasty. It tasted like dirt and metal. Bring your own water! Other than that… Not a bad experience!

My weekly habit. I have to get Otts on Saturday for lunch, brunch. Been going there since the 60’s when my dad would take us.

Only reason they lost a star is the cash only option! Very inconvenient! Best biscuits and gravy in town! Very cozy, homey feel.

Great place to meet up with friends and family for that «at home, morning breakfast» feel!

If you crave true Americana then look no further than Otts. It’s a dinner that time forgot and in a nice way. It’s a clean and easy to get to dinner tucked away on Rantoul Illinois North edge of town on Route 45, East side. Open for breakfast and lunch Tuesday thru Saturday. The made from scratch sausage gravy is the best I’ve had from a restaurant. Try the chili, it won’t disappoint you. I’ve been visiting Otts for over 40 years and other than the reasonable prices keeping pace, this gem of a dinner is unchanged and I love that.

This is a great little diner with a small town feel. They have a good breakfast menu but I decided to get lunch and go with their ½ pound Ott burger. It was freaking delicious. Nice and juicy with having too much grease.
The service was excellent, and everyone that I interacted with was super friendly.
Cash or check only which is a bummer.

Stopped here because of the reviews on Unilocal.The service was wonderful and the food was worth paying for. So if your ever traveling thru Rantoul and your on I-​57 they not far off so it’s worth. Real biscuits and gravy!

Great traditional diner ambiance. Pancakes were good and the bacon was cooked to perfection. Biscuits and gravy lacked taste and my husbands scrambled eggs were over cooked. Overall good breakfast for the money.

Worth the extra drive to find. Everything cooked to order and very reasonable. Parking is tight and service rather indifferent though we didn’t go without anything. If were that way again we’ll stop by again.

The biscuits are not home made, but the gravy they serve on them is and is just OK.
Many of the lunch items on the menu are frozen so your best bet is burger which is fresh. The service is often lackluster which is the only reason i didn’t give them another star. Update, I was there last week for a burger, The service was great the burger was very good. The one salty waitress was there. But the her son was on the grill. The owner and his son are both very friendly guys. All the breakfast stuff is fresh except the biscuits. I don’t know why but that really bothers me. However because of the great service I got an excellent burger I’m adding two stars so I’ve change my recommendation from okay to go.

Great local joint– but cash only!

A great place or Breakfast, Brunch or Lunch!!! Smiling faces and Amazing food!

I went here with mom after she came down to visit me in Paxton, Illinois, where I am a teacher!
Needless to say, I was looking for a local joint and had been suggested by one of the locals here in Paxton. The food was excellent! I got a Western Omelet (more on this later) and instead of toast I got cottage cheese. I also added a grilled chicken breast just for the hell of it. That was great too… love me some hot sauce. I even went up to the counter to get that hot sauce since our waitress… left something to be desired.
After I got said hot sauce (joking around with the woman in a Cubs shirt, telling her she was the «best» since she was nice enough to grab it for me… besides that shirt… she yelled GIVE IT BACK) that was great…
Anyway, our waitress gave us a few minutes to order. I couldn’t decide between an omelet and just scrambled eggs with ham. I decided to ask her what the Western Omelet entailed. She said tomato, green pepper, onion, mushroom, and ham. Now being the idiot that I am, I took her at her word. I should have just special ordered since that is what I usually do. Since I was getting cottage cheese I thought, eh, what the hell right? I got my cheese for the day… but she did not tell me the omelet included cheddar cheese. I am glad it was in there, but what if I was allergic or something? I am to blame for this as well, but come on Ott!
I would have given four stars for sure… but the whole refill of water (I had to go to the counter and I am hoping the woman didn’t spit in that refill) thing that I dealt with, going to the counter myself… THAT IS NOT SERVICE WITH A SMILE!
Would I go back? Yes, if I wanted diner style eating. I would not sit in this gals’ section.
I was going to get a t shirt to show the world that I’d eaten at Ott’s. But the service turned me office. I will keep that 12 dollars!
For my mom and I it was 20.45. Good and cheap!!!

Cool old fashioned diner. Reminds me of a Waffle House, but in an old old building. Good food, friendly and very clean.

I’ve gone to Ott’s for over twenty years, it never really changes and that is a good thing. Absolutely the best breakfast joint around. Home made biscuits and gravy don’t really have to say anything else. This place is just your classic dinner you sit at the counter and watch them make your food. All the food is great. So for breakfast or lunch you can’t wrong

Right in line with the DDD tradition, Ott’s is as close to a ‘Dive Diner’ as you can get. Sit at the counter and you feel like you could reach across and flip your own burger. Watching what goes on and the family atmosphere, no wonder you can’t find a seat at prime time. Great value, great food.

Every Foodie gets born somewhere. Even before they really know they are one. Sigmund Freud once said, «a child leaves the womb because its craving diner food.» (ok, something like that) But for this Foodie, I was born into this path at Ott’s Drive-​In. My earliest Foodie memory was around 8 or 9 years of age, and the fantastic treat of my father taking me or my brother and I there early Saturday mornings and to order what seemed to be taboo, but amazingly so for a breakfast, an «Ott Burger» with a vanilla or chocolate milkshake! The Ott Burger is a half pounder on Texas toast and of course, milkshakes are hand made. Their Biscuits & Gravy are huge favorites too, and as a child encountering the little chunks of peppery sausage, fired my desire to always seek new things. When there as a child, we’d sit at one of the 14 spinning, chrome & cushioned stools at the counter, or switch it up and do one of the original formica booths, but never too far from the grill. I wanted to see all of the action and how it was done! When those diced onions or onion rings hit the flattop and began to sound, I was either destined to become a composer, or a Foodie and you can guess how it turned out. I love music but it just doesn’t have much going for the nose. Even though a child of the 1970’s, I could tell this place was special and somehow, sensed it history. I have recollections of an old jukebox, pinball machines, chrome candy machine (LOVE THOSE), old bulky cigarette machines (even a strange cigar one), shiny black & white tiles checkered across the floor. Much of those things were removed as I grew up, but everything else original, intact, and less a fire in the 1960’s that closed it for a few months, it retains its character of the past. Ott’s is one of the long survivors in the cannon of American Diners at 42 years. Perhaps not as long as The Arcade of 1919 in Memphis, TN, but as far as those whom live for something more authentic of that mid-​20^th century era, Ott’s is still keeping old school diner alive. Before «fast food» became the stuff of clone and cancer, the drive up, drive in, or in Ott’s case, «drive to, park and go inside,» was the standard. The original owner, Othmer Mayer (died in 1978), had designed it to have a drive thru window, but it compromised the parking and never happened. In its heyday, when the town of Rantoul still had its Chanute Air Force Base, it was pretty much open til Midnight every night. Those diner days of «Nighthawks» are long gone sadly, but they do breakast and lunch every day but Sunday & Monday. A shame that they don’t open it back up to the youth of the town as it would give them something more wholesome than hanging out in the parking lot of Arby’s, but that’s just me. At least they’re still holding down the classical fort in other ways. Ott’s Drive-​In resides on the edge of my hometown, near old Rt 45 where it feels like you’re leaving small town America and traveling to nothing all at once. So in a way, it sits on the edge of vanquish, but there’s something prolific about a great diner being the last landmark before the town vanishes behind (or starts, depending on your view). Which is a statement of the diner journey for the Foodie. Classic diners are like little churches for our mortal appetites, where we dial it back to simple and recenter. Or, like me, with Ott’s, if just to get back in touch with my eternal Foodie child self. Foodies are travelers on roads in search of, and we need a good meal in our bellies before we venture on. For me, and others, Ott’s Drive-​In is an outward post on the Foodie Soul’s Eternal Sojourn and may it live forever.