More reasons to love...Uncle Franky's

​ Galaxy Drive In is great and all if you need to entertain a pack of kids, but whenever I eat there I can't help but get the feeling that the fare's been marked up to cover the cost of all the retro-futurama kitsch--$4.95 for pronto pup that's not hand-dipped?

At the original Uncle Franky's in Northeast, not an extra nickle goes towards ambiance. The place is no more than a roadside shack, with a chalkboard menu and a handful of tables and stools, that specializes in burgers, sandwiches, and hot dogs. (If it didn't have such an exuberant, child-like logo, designed by Chank Diesel, you could pass by the place a million times and not notice it.) The Chicago version, for one, comes in fine form: Vienna beef dog topped with pickle, tomato, onion, sport peppers, celery salt and perhaps a little too much of that florescent green relish. And it's cheap eats, to boot, at $3.25 a pop. Extras, like the malts, aren't the typical fast-food stuff: instead of the typical low-cost soft-serve, Franky's malts are old-school, made with hard ice cream, and blended to order--not what you'd expect for $3.50 price tag.