Ron's Hamburgers & Chili

It had been awhile since we'd eaten out, so we decided to check out Ron's, in Lowell.  We went there about 1:30 pm on New Year's Day.  It was fairly empty, and the server told us to seat ourselves.  The place looks like your typical generic restaurant, with booths around the outside and tables on the inside.  They also have 2 TVs.

The napkins are in a dispenser at the table, along with ketchup, Tobasco, and Louisiana Hot Sauce.  There was also something that looked like seasoned salt.  And of course, the usual salt, pepper, etc.

I ordered the 1/5 lb. Cheeseburger and Fries, with a sweet tea.  The burgers come with the option of regular onions or grilled onions, which I thought was great - I love grilled onions!  The tea was a bit odd.  It wasn't bad, but the sweet taste was a bit funny.  I'm really not sure how to describe it better.  The fries are homemade, with the skins still on.  They were alright.  My basket of fries didn't seem that fresh when it came to the table.  I think it was sitting on the counter for a bit while they finished the rest of our order.  The burger, however, was really good!  It had a nice quantity of lettuce and tomato, and small grilled onions on it.  Yummy!

Frank had the Chili, Jumbo Cheeseburger (1/3 lb.) with grilled onions, and unsweet tea.  He said the chili had a some warmth to it, not a lot, but a good flavor.  He put it as, he wouldn't go there just for the chili, but he would eat it when he did go there.  He also loved the burger!  He wasn't sure about the tea.  It had an odd taste.  It wasn't astringent like most tea is, so he wondered if maybe it was made from a syrup or something.  Or maybe it's a mild-flavored tea instead of the usual ones.

Here's a comparison of our burgers:

An interesting point about Ron's - they have the Who's ur Daddy?  It's a 2 lb. cheeseburger, 1 lb. fries, and a drink.  If you finish it all withing 15 minutes, it's free and you get your photo put on the wall!  Frank lamented not being 10 years younger so that he could go for it.

Overall, we liked the place.  It's got a kind of diner feel, the server was friendly, and it also has free Wi-fi.  Our total bill was about $17 which is pretty good these days.  I'm going to give a range of 3.5 to 4 stars, because the fries were okay, the chili was fine, but the burgers were really good.