john and i took a little road trip for the day to topeka because, well, it's there. i want to see as many kansas towns before we move to colorado next year & the state capital seemed like a good one go to. i found a few places i wanted to see at travelks.com (a website i highly recommend if you ever find yourself in kansas) and we took off for the 60 mile trip around 9am. we walked thru the state capital building, i touched a real tiffany window at an amazing little church and we ducked into a sam's store to escape one of kansas's short but scary thunderstorms (after which the sky cleared up & the temperature dipped comfortably). we also found a theater & saw "eastern promises" & had the most surprisingly good movie theater hot dog ever.

of course, i also took note of several interesting sounding restaurants. one of the places on my list was bobo's drive in. we passed the place on the way to sam's around noon and it was packed. after seeing it john agreed that we had to come back for lunch. the restaurant, located at 2300 sw 10th in topeka, is really small and quaint. the inside dining area has 6 or 7 small tables and a counter with about 9 stools. the menu informed us that bobo's has been around for over 50 years but i would have guessed that as soon as i saw the interior. it's all formica & plush pink vinyl but it's not like "wow, this stuff looks 50 years old" because it has been very well maintained. you can tell it's not one of those "retro" places that someone has painstakingly designed to look like a 50's diner... it IS a 50's diner. there is also car hop service but don't expect it to be like sonic restaurants. there is no microphone to place your order into. you pull up & turn on your headlights to alert an employee and then place your order from a large menu at the end of the parking lot. there is much more room for patrons outside than in but i bet space is still hard to come by during lunch or dinner time. we went at around 3pm so the dining room was nearly empty but 3 other couples ate & went during the time we were there.

when we walked in we were surprised to find a crew from the local news station interviewing one of the owners (we ended up being in their report which you can see here). we learned the reason why the news was there is because bobo's is going to be featured on the food network series "diners, drive-ins & dives" which is being filmed as i write this. the owners, tricia & richard, who bought bobo's just 5 months ago were exceptionally friendly and very informative. they, and the rest of the staff, were so friendly, i could have sat there for hours & chatted with them. i know that their warmth & charm will come through when they are profiled by food network.

selection: bobo's has a very simple & traditional menu. there are no surprises here, it's your basic burger & fry drive-in menu. they also serve hot dogs, corn dogs, sandwiches, ice cream & pie. john ordered a double burger, onion rings & a rootbeer. i got a cheeseburger, onion rings and an rc cola because, i mean, seriously... where can you get rc cola anymore? and there's nothing like rc cola. after all the eating & talking we got talked into trying the pie as well.

taste: you can get a burger at a million different places but they usually all taste the same or aren't anything special. you'll have neither of these problems at bobo's. the burgers are simply perfect. the meat is thin (a little thicker than a steak-n-shake burger, for those of you who are familiar) with that irregular, homemade look which makes for plenty of the crispy outer layer & edges that are my favorite part of a burger. if you look at them from the top, they are about the size of your average fast food burger but they are way thicker with all the stuff on top. the burgers come with lettuce, tomato, pickle & mayo and tricia told us the meat is 90% lean. one of the cooks told us he's been there 6 years & when ownership changed, nothing else did. they still make all the food the same. i am not a huge big, fat burger fan so these were perfect for me. they just tasted so good! all the ingredients tasted fresh and you could actually taste the actual fresh beefy goodness.  the onion rings were also incredible. they are hand made from their own recipe (like many of their menu items) and are the best i've had in a really long time. the pie is made by "mama" (who wasn't there at the time) who's been baking for bobo's for over 30 years. i am really not a fan of pie and apple, which is the only kind they have, is probably my least favorite. that being said, this pie was amazing. the crust was perfect, obviously homemade and very flaky. the filling wasn't overpowered by cinnamon or any other flavor like you get with some pies. it just tasted like fresh apples. everything we had was just super delicious. we were both really impressed & glad we discovered bobo's.

service: everyone at bobo's was exceptionally friendly & attentive. we didn't have to wait more than about 5 minutes for our food. it was really cool that the owners were there & so willing to chat with us. the other employees were very nice & funny.

value: our bill came to just over $12 before the tip. this included everything except they pie. they were nice enough to give us that for free!

reheatability: john finished all of his & i had about half my burger left which i finished right when we go home so nothing to reheat this time.

ranch: we didn't have any ranch but we did try the "house" sauce, which richard said they make from, among other things, ketchup, horseradish and tabasco. it was a little hot and definitely different. i really liked it a lot.  i might just have to try & recreate it at home.

bathroom: to be honest, i don't know if they even had a bathroom.  i mean, i’m sure they do, i just didn’t have the need to notice.

everything about bobo's is just great: wonderful food, super nice people, great value, nostalgic atmosphere. i just really wish it was closer so that we could go back again & again. i guess we'll just have to make some excuses to go to topeka! and we'll have to keep watching "diners, drive-ins and dives" on food network so we can see our favorite place in topeka get real famous. and they totally deserve it!

grade: A+