Early Fast Food: Drive-in Restaurants - Drug Store Fountains

Discussion in 'Other Reminiscences' started by Marie Mallery, Mar 11, 2024.

  1. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Did y'all have Drug stores with soda fountains? We sometimes all meet up at the soda fountain after school.
    Order lime or cherry cokes. Sometimes a milk shake, or banana split.
     
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  2. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    There was one in Marinette, Wisconsin. It was still open when I went back ten years ago, but the building looked empty a few years ago.
     
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  3. Jenna Parnellson

    Jenna Parnellson Very Well-Known Member
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    My high school boyfriend would take me to a drive-in (outdoor) restaurant called A&W Root Beer (or something like that). There was no interior restaurant; you just ate in the car.

    The carhops would roller skate up to the car and somehow clamp a tray to the driver's side window, take our order, and then deliver it to the window tray.

    Lotsa hamburgers, Cokes, floats and french fries, as I recall. Pretty great when I was a "starving" teenager.

    Yes, I know. Not exactly diet food. LOL
     
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  4. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Root beer was big in Indiana. We had a place like you mentioned called Dog 'n Suds. I think Goofy (or a cartoon dog that looked just like him) was their icon.
     
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  5. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    A&W's were great, and we had a Dog 'n Suds in Stephenson, the town where I went to high school.
     
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  6. Krystal Shay

    Krystal Shay Very Well-Known Member
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    Yes we did! Ice cream sundaes and more. We got cherry cokes, vanilla cokes, and marshmallow cokes. (or Pepsi) They were 5 cents for small ones and 10 cents for the larger one. Those were the days! :cool:
     
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  7. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    My dad managed one of those stores. This was in the days before "premix," when you put the cola/chocolate/vanilla/cherry syrups in the glass and then add the seltzer water. I would go behind the counter after closing and make my own concoctions.
     
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  8. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Plus the druggist even sold leeches for black eyes or blood blisters.
    Soda clerks would fix up concoctions, like castor oil for us kids, that our parents would call in. No getting rid of that nasty taste no matter how much cherry he put on in it.
     
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  9. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    We had an A&W in Sandpoint when I was growing up, and they had that delicious frosted-mug root beer we all loved. We still had one in Bonners Ferry when my kids were growing up and they had “coney Tuesday “ when they were 5/$1, so for a couple of dollars we all had coneys every week. This happened to be the same day as the local auction for miscellaneous and livestock (the local gathering place) so a lot of people expected to have hot dogs and root beer on Tuesdays.
     
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  10. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Yvonne A-W Root Beer was a fun place with curb girls and I was one, I really liked Root Beer Floats too. We waiting on cars with roller skates, remember that?
    Fun times.

    Was the Bonners Ferry In Alabama?
     
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  11. Krystal Shay

    Krystal Shay Very Well-Known Member
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    I don't recall any leeches being sold at at our local drug store.o_O But who knows what went on in the back room.:D
     
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  12. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Krystal, are you from here or aboard? Our druggist also made all kinds of concoctions. And he also had leeches.
    I didn't realize there were so many black eyes that called for leeches back then.
    I guess now they just shoot you, so leeches aren't needed.
     
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  13. Krystal Shay

    Krystal Shay Very Well-Known Member
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    I'm from the Midwest of the good ol' USA. :D
     
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  14. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    I thought so but wasn't sure. Maybe the leech fix is a southern thing, but I know drug store had them.
     
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  15. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    We didn’t have curbs for our A&W’s, @Marie Mallery . It was a tiny north Idaho town, and it was just gravel outside of the building where we parked our cars back then, nothing was paved , even the town streets were just dirt that turned into deep mud every spring and closed schools. It was called “Spring Breakup”, and I supposed all of the kids looked forward to it, even if the adults didn’t because some people could barely get out of their driveways/
    Anyway, the drive-in was out on the edge of town, so not anywhere that we kids went after school.

    We didn’t have any drug stores with soda fountains, either. I am not sure where the kids gathered after school, I was always shy and not involved in most of the social events from school.
    I have not been in Alabama for that long, and only moved here from idaho because my daughter lived out here in Huntsville.
     
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