Cook Out offers lunch and dinner time meals.
Cook Out was founded in 1989 by Morris Reaves in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their first sit-in location opened in 1996 in High Point, North Carolina, and opened their first location outside of North Carolina in 2010 in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Morris is the current primary shareholder of the company, but the company’s CEO is currently his son, Jeremy Reaves, which shows that Cook Out’s future may be of a family business.
You can visit their official website here for more information on the company. You can visit their Company page for more details on their trajectory and history.
Which Countries Have a Cook Out Restaurant?
Currently only the United States. They have almost 300 locations in over 100 cities, mostly focused in the Southern region.
Cook Out is available in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Mississippi.
What is Different About Cook Out?
Despite being a fast food restaurant, they still take care of the quality of their ingredients. All of the meat they serve you is 100% fresh and cooked on the same day it is ground and made into a patty, without any freezing involved.
Another big differentiator is their Tray combos that you can use to choose and customize your own combination of different items you’d like to have for a better price than ordering them individually. With a tray combo, you can choose one primary menu item (like a big burger) plus two sides (like fries) plus a beverage (like water or a milkshake).
And, of course, there’s also their milkshakes. Which aren’t just delicious, but come in over 40 different flavors! If there’s a type of milkshake you’d like to taste, they’ve got it. This is a really impressive diversity for any restaurant, let alone a fast food chain.
Is Cook Out Spicy?
Most of their menu isn’t spicy, but they do have some items that will give you a good kick, like their Crispy Spicy Chicken Breast Fillet, the Cajun Chicken, and the Cajun Ranch sauce.
Lots of different burgers, lots of different milkshakes, and lots of hot dogs.
Their burgers are highly customizable, and you have the choice of adding or removing mayo, mustard, ketchup, pickles, onion, lettuce, grilled onions, or Cajun seasoning. On top of it, you can choose to add tomatoes, bacon, or cheese as extras. Then, you can also choose a particular “Style” to add to your burger, like the Cook Out Style that adds homemade chili, slaw, mustard, and onion to your burger.
They also offer barbecue, chicken breasts, chicken strips, chicken wraps, quesadillas, and multiple other sides and sauces.
And, of course, they offer milkshakes, which they’re also famous for since they have over 30 different milkshake types, including Mocha, Cheesecake, Vanilla, Peanut Butter, and many more.
How Do I Order Food at Cook Out?
You can ask for delivery through a third party like UberEats or go to one of their locations and order on their drive-thru lane.
Do bear in mind that the vast majority of their locations do not have an indoor restaurant area for dine-in, and only offer the drive-thru option.
Does Cook Out Cater to Vegetarians?
Yes and no. The large majority of their items are not vegetarian-friendly, including burgers, hot dogs, and other savory options. You’ll have to go for the side items, like the onion rings or the french fries, to get a savory vegetarian-friendly meal.
However, the other important part of their menu – the large section of milkshakes, is completely vegetarian and you can consume them without worry. They also have coke floats and cheesecakes for sweet-toothed vegetarians.
Kind of. They don’t have a completely separated children’s menu, but they do have the Jr. Tray, which is designed for kids and comes with your choice of a small burger, 2 chicken strips, 2 corn dogs, a BLT sandwich, a hot dog, or one quesadilla plus two sides and a beverage.
Since the two sides can be quite calorie-heavy (like the bacon wrap or the chicken wrap, both of which have more than 400 calories), you generally want to choose some of the lower-calorie ones for the Jr. Tray when ordering for a kid, like the coleslaw (100 calories) or the chili (170 calories).
What Are Cook Out’s Opening Hours?
They typically open at 11 am and close down at 4 am and open every day of the week.
But Cook Out has over 200 locations, which means that not all locations will adopt the same schedule, with some opening or closing at different hours. It isn’t uncommon for some of them to close down at 5 am during the weekends for example.
Is Cook Out Healthy?
No. It’s going to be very difficult to have healthy meals at Cook Out. Most of their meals are very high in calories and fat because of how much meat and oils go into most of their foods, as well as how much salt and sugar each meal has.
With that said, it is not impossible to get a healthy meal. Some of their items like the Regular Chicken, the Small Burger, and the Homemade Style Char-Grilled Chicken Breast are all fine options that are not high in fats or calories, though they may contain significant amounts of sodium.
And as for their milkshakes, it’ll depend on the base ingredient you choose for the milkshake. A Fresh Banana milkshake or a Pineapple milkshake will both be a lot healthier than the less nutritious and very sugary Caramel milkshake or the Oreo milkshake.
Can I Make Cook Out at Home?
Sadly, no. There are no Cook Out use-at-home products or ingredients, nor do they have open recipes for their items. The best you can do is try to replicate them based on intuition and trial-and-error.