Local Attractions/Restaurants: The Sycamore Drive-In Restaurant - Bethel, CT

Located at 282 Greenwood Ave. in Bethel, Connecticut is The Sycamore Restaurant. A unique eating experience where summer Saturday evenings is the time to drive up in your Cherry Coupe or Pickup Truck.

Hamburgers at the Sycamore Drive-In are made “French style.” That means that the grill man slaps a thick round circle of beef onto the grill then uses his spatula to flatten it out so far that the edges of the resulting circle are nearly paper thin. As the burger cooks, the middle gets nice and juicy while the circumference turns into a crusty web of beef. You can get it plain, doubled, or topped with all sorts of ingredients but the connoisseur’s choice here is the Dagwood burger. That’s a nice five-ounce patty with cheese and nearly every garnish known to mankind piled into a bun.

Beyond hamburgers, the Sycamore also offers frankfurters topped with bacon and sauerkraut, a fine “pot o’ beans,” and good chili. It is famous for its root beer, made on premises from a top-secret recipe and served in frosty glass mugs. The root beer varies from sweet to dry, depending on where in the barrel yours comes from, but whatever its nature on any day, it always makes the perfect basis of a root beer float.

The Sycamore is a genuine drive in with car-hop service (just blink your lights) and window trays for in-car dining. Indoors, there are booths and a long counter. It’s a true blast from the past!