Just how much do Singaporeans miss A&W? Just look at the massive lines thronging the American fast food chain’s comeback franchised outlet in Singapore, which opened to the public yesterday (April 11) via a ticketed preview at Jewel Changi Airport. The mall officially opens on April 17.

Okay, it has been 16 years since A&W exited from our shores in 2003 after all. We’re guessing many of the customers who showed up did so out of nostalgia, like we did. In fact, we were the first ‘customer’ at the eatery yesterday, where a grinning Rooty the bear mascot statue holding a root beer mug stood gleaming beside A&W’s distinctively orange-hued ordering counter. Ahh, our childhood is back!

Despite an absence of almost two decades, little has changed about A&W’s decor now that it has returned to Singapore. It’s orange everywhere, and a retro giant mural of a chio bu holding up root beer and a Chicken Coney Cheese Dog adorns a wall. Chirpy staff in orange polo tees and caps bustle around.

But the 80-seat outlet has comfier, studier wooden tables and chairs now, an upgrade from what we remembered of dining there in the ’90s and early Noughties. The space is not big; in fact, it feels rather cramped everywhere. But it’s also open 24 hours, so maybe you can get some breathing space if you go there at, say, 3am for your A&W fix. The restaurant is currently waiting for their halal certification, but is “Muslim-friendly” as they do not use pork or lard at all.

We’re glad we got to admire the space before the public hordes descended on the restaurant yesterday afternoon — at 10am, there were already some of Jewel’s tenant staff eagerly lining up at the counter. At 1pm, when the first group for the public preview arrived, the crowd situation started descending into chaos. When we passed by the eatery at 5pm, A&W’s narrow entrance was packed with queues crammed tightly, shoulder to shoulder, like the mosh pit at a rock concert. Whoa.

See it for yourself in this video:

We were told by staff that the waiting time then to order food was one hour, and orders will take up to half an hour to be served. Why so long? Well, ’cos all the food are prepared freshly a la minute, even when there’s an insane crowd. Meaning, your fried chicken is only fried upon order, and your burger is only assembled right before you self-collect it from the collection point at the back of the eatery.

At 2pm today, the second day of the public preview, the wait time to order food has bloated to a whopping two hours. The line stretches all the way to the nearby FairPrice Finest supermarket. As the weekend is here, we expect the queue is gonna get worse from today.

Founded in 1919 in California, US, A&W is well-known for its “All American Food”. The classics are all back: the beef Mozza Burger ($10.90 for a combo meal with curly fries and root beer) with mozzarella cheese, Double Cheeseburger ($5.90 a la carte) and of course, the Chicken/Beef Coney Cheese Dog in a bun ($5.70 a la carte). The Curly Fries ($3.60) are still darn curly, the Root Beer ($2.90 a mug) is still pulled from a tap, and the Waffle Ice Cream ($7.90) still looks like an old-school treat.

What’s new and exclusive to Jewel this time, though, is the addition of “regional favourites” from our neighbouring countries’ A&W outlets. Like the A&W Cream Cheese Chicken Burger ($7.90 a la carte) with semolina buns, which is a hit at their Okinawa stores, and Golden Aroma Fried Chicken ($3.20 per piece), which hails from Indonesia’s A&W, as well as a Waffle Sundae ($4.90), which is very popular with A&W customers in Thailand.

Nobody leaves A&W without chugging a root beer. Their signature beverage is still served in a frosty, heavy glass mug like the old times. We adore their Root Beer Float with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and are pleased to report that it’s still as creamy, sweet and delightful as we remembered it.

All of A&W’s Coney Cheese Dog comes with chicken cheese sausages; the only difference when you order a beef dawg is the bolognese sauce that is poured on top of the sausage, which is made with minced beef. We only had the stomach space for a quick bite of this cheese dog bun, and found the sauce-drenched sausage topped with chopped pungent onions satisfyingly yummy. But the accompanying bun was too dry. The crispy, curly fries are still as delish and fun to gnaw on.

These hand-breaded fried chicken tenders look promising, and is something we’d return to try once the crowd craze dies down. It looks much better than A&W Indonesia’s Golden Aroma fried chook that we ate on a few occasions in Jakarta, which always seem to be sloppily fried till it’s an unholy crisp. Hope the Singaporean version will be better.

This is a classic case of an Expectations VS. Reality meme. On the menu, the Mozza Burger is a towering, fine specimen of a burger flaunting its double patties, “real mozzarella cheese” slice and veggie frills. The burger that came in reality is… shorter, with thin, dry-looking patties. It looks more like their Cheeseburger to us. We didn’t manage to try this, but we probably wouldn’t order this as regular customers.

The highlight of our childhood was ending a meal at A&W with waffles and ice cream. We can only eyeball this waffle, but it looks pretty dope: crispy on the outside, fluffy-looking on the inside, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream drizzled with strawberry sauce. At almost $8, this is not cheap for fast food standards, though. A plain waffle with butter and syrup costs $7.50.