We tried Bob Evans for the first time. My family agreed the chain had good food and was a great value — but parts of the meal were disappointing.
Terri Peters
As fast-food prices rise, more consumers are finding the value in dining out at chain restaurants — including my husband and I.
Up until about a year ago, we rarely ate at chain restaurants. But with rising food costs and our two teens wanting to check out the chains and dishes they keep seeing on social media, we've started to lean in.
We love getting breakfast together on the weekends, so we decided to visit Bob Evans for the first time to see what kind of value we'd find.
Here's how our visit to the famous chain went.
Terri Peters
The casual-dining chain Bob Evans is known for its country vibes, sausages, and "farm-fresh" all-day breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It's been around for decades, with Robert "Bob" Evans opening the restaurant that'd later become Bob Evans in Ohio in 1962. Since then, the company has reinvented itself a few times.
It was sold to a private-equity firm in 2017 for $565 million, and was exploring a sale at a $600 million valuation in 2022. In March, Axios reported that Bob Evans was working with the investment bank Kroll, meaning the company could be back on the market and seeking a buyer.
At the time of writing, the chain has about 500 locations in 18 US states. We visited one in Florida.
Terri Peters
The large Bob Evans menu has just about everything: mimosas, pancakes, omelets, burgers, soup-and-salad combos, and more.
To start, my son and I ordered a mixed juice drink off of the seasonal menu. Our drinks were $4 each and pretty tasty, if not a little sugary.
My daughter got a flavored iced tea ($3.50) and my husband ordered a classic cup of coffee ($3).
Terri Peters
I love that Bob Evans serves breakfast appetizers, and we were powerless to resist the Blue Ribbon Bacon, center-cut, hardwood-smoked bacon glazed with black-pepper-maple honey.
The $5 order of bacon came with five honey-glazed strips that were flavorful, but a bit thin.
When I've ordered specialty bacon at other restaurants the strips were usually thick and hearty. These felt no different than the bacon that later came with my kids' breakfasts.
Terri Peters
I often find chain-restaurant portions to be way too large, so I loved seeing Bob Evans' "sunrise savers" menu, which offered smaller portions of breakfast fare, like sausage gravy and biscuits or brioche French toast, at a lower price.
I ordered a $7 country-biscuit breakfast: a biscuit topped with a cooked-to-order egg, sausage, country gravy, and cheddar cheese.
Breakfast potatoes are my favorite morning treat, so I chose hash browns as my side dish. Sadly, the hash browns (both on my plate and my husband's) seemed undercooked — each bite of potato had an unpleasantly hard, kind of raw crunch to it. Maybe we just got unlucky with a batch that wasn't fried long enough in the kitchen.
I was disappointed I couldn't enjoy my hash browns, but the rest of the meal was tasty. I had a ton of leftovers even though I ordered a value portion and left my potatoes behind.
Terri Peters
My husband also ordered from the value menu.
He chose the mini sampler, which included an egg, hash browns, a sausage patty, and a biscuit for $6. He also added a side order of sausage gravy for his biscuit for an extra $2.
Overall, he enjoyed his meal, minus the seemingly undercooked hash browns. The portion size was still large enough that he took some home and — perhaps unsurprising because Bob Evans is known for its sausage — the sausage patty was a highlight of his meal.
Terri Peters
My teenage daughter ordered a stack of Bob Evans' double-blueberry hotcakes, which were smothered in blueberry topping, then topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar.
The $10 dish came with a side of breakfast meat — she chose bacon — and was presented beautifully.
She really enjoyed her meal and said these were her favorite chain-restaurant pancakes to date. She ended up bringing more than half of this gigantic portion of pancakes home in a to-go box.
They were great leftovers the following morning, and even then, she couldn't finish them all.
Terri Peters
My teenage son ordered Bob Evans' version of chocolate-chip hotcakes, which were filled with chocolate chips and then topped with more chocolate chips, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.
The $10 breakfast also came with a choice of meat, and he also chose bacon.
Because he was intrigued by the novelty of also being able to order off Bob Evans' lunch and dinner menu in the morning, my son also got a $3 side of fries.
Although I thought fries seemed like a strange accompaniment to pancakes and bacon, he really enjoyed them.
Terri Peters
Although most of the food we ordered at Bob Evans was really tasty, there were areas where our experience failed to score high marks.
The Blue Ribbon Bacon could've been tastier if that honey glaze was poured over thicker cuts of bacon, and the poorly cooked hash browns were a huge miss, in my opinion. I'd be curious to order them another time to see if I get a better batch.
Still, my kids were thrilled with both the blueberry and chocolate-chip hotcakes, and our country breakfast items like sausage, sausage gravy, and biscuits did not disappoint.
Our meal came to $63 after tax and it felt like a great value, especially considering it included four drinks, an appetizer, and four large-portioned breakfast entrées.
I'm not sure I'd seek out a Bob Evans for breakfast again, but I'd consider it if my kids were really craving the chain's over-the-top pancakes.
