New to Fenton, Hippo’s Eatery is a local, family-owned restaurant with a bar food style menu, and is located on Silver Parkway near The UPS Store. The exterior of the restaurant brings a welcoming vibe to the customer with about two outside tables for patrons to be able to enjoy food in the fresh air and the fun logo located at the top of the building including the restaurant’s very own namesake mascot. 

Hippo’s is a cafeteria-style restaurant; you order at the front and then sit down at a table where your food will be brought to you. The restaurant was basically empty so after ordering, I waited about 10 minutes for my food to be brought to me. For a non-fast food restaurant, this is a good wait time as the food is not pre‐made. I ordered the six piece chicken tenders and large fries, which totaled out to just under $12.

The tenders were delicious— they were not dry; they were crunchy and perfectly seasoned. I could eat them without sauce and still like them; the options for sauces was limited with only about six sauce options and the sauces came in cafeteria packets. The fries were crinkle wedge fries and tasted mediocre. Nothing about the fries was overly special and they were lacking seasoning.

Rounding out my meal, I ordered two different desserts; orange sherbet and strawberry cheesecake ice cream. The two scoops of ice cream cost a little bit over $2. Ordering two scoops was enough ice cream to share with two other people and still have some left over, so the ice cream has a very large serving size. The strawberry cheesecake ice cream was one of my favorite flavors— you could clearly taste the strawberry and the ice cream was nice and smooth without any chunks and didn’t taste chalky. The sherbert was delicious; I shared it with my family and they could not stop eating it. 

My experience and the food at Hippo’s Eatery combined would be 4.5 stars rated on a 5 star scale. The staff was friendly and polite when I was ordering and answering my questions about the food. The food for the most part was above average— the fries really were the only set back in my dining experience. 

At the end of my meal, I ended up spending a total of $15, which is a good price for a full meal compared to other restaurants in the area, like Applebees which averages around $20 a meal. For any questions about their menu or if you want to order takeout from Hippo’s, head over to their website https://hipposeatery.com/ for any information you may need. I highly recommend to anyone in Fenton looking for a casual spot for a variety of bar-style food and stellar ice cream options, to try out Hippo’s Eatery for some quick dining or to-go grub.