review of arby's roastburger™

reviewed: march 8, 2009

Arby's has built a successful chain concept around thin-sliced roast beef sandwiches. I remember enjoying Arby's with my dad and grandfather in Athens, Georgia as a kid and Arby's has stayed relevant over the decades since.

Now Arby's is promoting a new sandwich line which they square off directly against the traditional hamburger. Cleverly named the RoastBurger, the three new sandwiches are marketed as the All-American RoastBurger, the Bacon & Bleu RoastBurger and the Bacon Cheddar RoastBurger.

Arby's ran a wonderful promotion on Sunday, March 8, 2009 that allowed customers to get a free RoastBurger with the purchase of a soft drink. I and six others headed there for lunch and between us all we sampled each of the three new sandwiches.

all-american Roastburger

Overall we enjoyed the All-American RoastBurger. This sandwich comes with the basic condiments that

you'd expect on a hamburger - lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onion. Stacked with

Arby's roast beef, however, the texture is somewhat different yet the flavors generally work together nicely.

In some ways, the All-American RoastBurger is a ramped up version of the Super Roast Beef Sandwich

which also comes with tomato and lettuce. For us, the onions and pickles aren't preferred on the

RoastBurger version but the option to have them will certainly appeal to some.

bacon & bleu roastburger

Arby's Bacon & Bleu RoastBurger was our biggest disappointment. Everyone who tried this sandwich

said the bleu cheese sauce tasted artificial and this alone was enough to leave the Bacon & Bleu

unfinished.

This version is offered with just lettuce, tomato and onion which makes sense when you consider that

the bleu cheese spread is intended to be the central condiment flavor. Too bad the bleu made us blue.

bacon cheddar roastburger

Here is where we found our favorite. The Bacon Cheddar RoastBurger came closest to meeting our

expectations. The pepper bacon is thick and nicely flavored and the real slice of cheese is a

welcome change from the cheese sauce used on Arby's other roast beef sandwiches. All the

ingredients tasted good together and this sandwich was the one that our group said they would

choose when ordering a RoastBurger in the future.

summary

Arby's is not rolling out something completely new here. Rather, they are dressing their traditional roast beef with traditional

hamburger trappings. In some instances, it works pretty well. We certainly thought all three sandwiches were juicy and we found a new favorite that we will enjoy again in the future.

There are also those that will argue roast beef is probably healthier than fried hamburger patties - Arby's certainly implies this in their marketing.

However, if you weren't a fan of Arby's roast beef sandwiches before we don't believe the RoastBurger will do much to change your mind. Nevertheless, if you end up at Arby's for the weekly office lunch, try a RoastBurger. You might just find that the new "package" is "stimulus for change" after all.

-- Stephen W. Beam, WestGeorgiaDining.com