White Rose Bar & Grill is a family-owned restaurant in York, Pennsylvania. The restaurant has been in business since 1933. It’s one of those kinds of restaurants that you drive by and say, “Hmmm!”
Seriously. That’s what I did when I was aimlessly looking for some place to settle in for a meal. York, Pennsylvania is by no means my stomping grounds, so I was delighted to stumble upon a well-established gem.
Upon entering the restaurant, I could smell the seafood in the air. That’s not saying it smelled bad, there was just a wafting that made me want to follow my nose.
The second thing I noticed was the vibe.
Yes, I think ‘vibe’ is the perfect word.
It was pretty chill during the 4 o’clock hour on a Wednesday evening, but you could clearly see that it’s the kind of place that gets a crowd. I loved the abundance of seating areas. You could sit in the bar area, but there was also a more loungey interior area, and a few seating areas with more natural lighting and a streetside view.
As for the food, my crew of three were in an appetizer kind of mood. So, we ordered a shareable crab pretzel, which was loaded with cheddar-jack, parmesan, and mozzarella. It was super creamy, the Old Bay was hitting, and the pretzel sticks were wonderfully soft.
My sister, MCCN Founder Crystal Johnson had the Eastern Shore style cream of crab soup, which was also rich, creamy, and bursting with crab meat. That’s exactly what you want to see when, like me, you live in Maryland, and are out of town eating crab.
For all my talk about seafood, I decided to go super simple with an order of wings. Fortunately, my choice paid off double because it was on a Wednesday night half-price special. So, I couldn’t just call it a win by paying half-price, I did two orders for sharing among three.
White Rose Bar & Grill has a variety of choices like Old Bay, Garlic Parmesan, Hot Buffalo, but I settled on Jamaican Jerk and an order of their Wing Dust wings.
We devoured it.
The wings were juicy, flavorful, fresh, crispy…and oh my gosh, so delicious.
The coup de grace was the best imaginable ending to our culinary tour. We ordered the Smith Island cake. Now, if you don’t know about the Smith Island cake, check out our article outlining some of its history and the actual location and bakery on Smith Island that makes these cakes and ships them out daily. But if you haven’t heard of it, let’s catch you up! It’s usually a yellow cake with multiple thin layers, each slathered with icing.
You would normally see it as a chocolate frosted cake, with super-thin layers, but ours had a bit of a twist. I’m going to chalk it up to it being a Maryland cake served in Pennsylvania. The twist was the layers were a little thicker and there was alternating chocolate and peanut butter frosted layers.
Hey! We don’t have a problem. No problem at all. I couldn’t believe how much my taste buds were shouting, “More! More! More!”
It’s so fun to visit a restaurant that’s doing simple things, not only well, but with its own sense of identity. And judging by its longevity, the White Rose Bar & Grill has been doing more than one thing well for a very long time.
I’m already planning my comeback…Saturday brunch, here I come.
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