Going to a drive-in for a meal of burgers and fries was fun for a Boomer kid in a whole lot of ways. First of all, a hamburger, fries, and a shake tasted like heaven. Second, eating in the car was a blast. And thirdly, your food was deliverd by a cute teenaged girl on roller skates.
How much better could life get?
It all started back in 1921. Automobiles were beginning to be a ubiquitous sight in Dallas, Texas. A businessman named J.G. Kirby and a physician by the name of R.W. Jackson decided to take advantage of the fact that many people owned cars, and that many of them were also lazy, too lazy to get out of their cars to eat. They opened a restaurant called the Pig Stand.
Do you get the idea that these guys didn't think a lot of their customers?
A&W, which began business in 1919, soon followed suit as drive-in restaurants became more and more popular. The A&W corporate website actually claims to have opened the first carhop restaurant in 1923, but Pig Stands had male carhops from their inception.
Soon, carhop-delivered food could be obtained in drive-ins all over the country. A particular hotspot was the Los Angeles area, a haven for car owners even in the early part of the century. L.A. probably had more drive-ins than any other urban location in the first half of the century.
Flash forward to the 1950's. Drive-in restaurants had a population explosion, as fathers who fought in WWII were looking for places to take their families out to dinner that didn't cost an arm and a leg. Drive-ins filled the bill perfectly, as moms loved getting a break from cooking, and kids, well as I mentioned before, they loved drive-ins for a variety of reasons.
You would pull up to the drive-in, and a carhop would come skating out to take your order. Then, she would glide back into the restaurant, beauty in motion on eight wheels. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, she would return, carrying your order on a tray that was made to fit perfectly on your father's window rolled up about two inches. Then, dad would distribute the hot, sweetly aromatic, paper-wrapped delicacies amongst the other inhabitants of the Plymouth.
I'm not sure I've ever tasted anything as delicious as carhop-delivered-French fries, circa 1967.
Drive-in restaurants with carhop-delivered food have declined since that golden Eisenhower decade. But they still exist. And the ones that are still around are doing quite well, thank you.
The one with the best food, IMHO, is In-N-Out, an L.A.-based chain that stretches as far east as Vegas, whose franchise unfortunately doesn't feature carhops. But I remember carhop service at one in Azusa, California, about 25 years ago. Other chains that are still around (and that still have carhops in at least some of their locations) include Sonic, Dog-N-Suds, and the aforementioned A&W.
Some independents still have their carhops on skates. Workman's comp costs have put the rest on sneakers.
So here's to a cute teenaged girl bringing you your burgers, fries, and malts on a tray to your car window. For pete's sake, leave her a tip, would you?
Comments (2)
I always think of "American Graffiti"
when I think of car bellhops. Bill Haley starts rocking around the clock, and all is well, for the time it takes to eat the burger and flirt with the girls, anyway. Truly, can there have been a more fun time to grow up than 55-63, pre-Beatles and classic rock, when lyrics didn't have any significance other than papa-ohh-mow-mow, and fun was the word(and grease too)?
I'm sorry, but I strongly feel that there was more significance in the 55-63 music. It didn't preach, the sheer exhilaration of youth was center stage, and the only question was if it had a beat(and you could dance to it).
Car bellhops fit right into that universe. Pony-tailed, gum-smacking cuties living in the moment, taking orders for burgers and fries as if that was the only thing you could imagine eating
(Not Unlike SNL's Billy
Goat Tavern Parody, where cheesebourgies,
with chips and pepsi,
without fries and cokes, was its own food universe).
Being a lifelong hamburger and fries man myself, I could only hope that heaven is a eternal fast-food drive-in, with heavenly munchies.
As an aside, I recall the atmosphere of a drive-in concession stand to be somewhat similar in the 60's.
Besides the concession advertisements between double and tripe bills, a blast in itself(its
own dancing hotdog universe), how much fun it was to get deliciously crappy baskets of fries, jumbo hot dogs, strangely colored green and red carbonated punch(walgreens lunch counter and drive-ins were the only places to get what I call radioactive punch, though animal house featured it nicely during Bluto's trudge through the food counter), and humungous bags of popcorn(when it was FRESHLY POPPED, not pre-popped in giant bags at movie theaters today. They gave you a tray to attach to the car window, which was already doing double duty holding a car speaker.....Lets face it, those days rocked!
Posted by scott | July 27, 2007 5:07 AM
Posted on July 27, 2007 05:07
American Grafitti and Mels Drive In was too cool! I always wanted to see the original sight in which it was filmed in Marin County. But had to settle for Tiny Naylors in LA!
As a child living in the suburbs, we really didn't have drive inns close by. We did have a Hot Shoppes that was a drive inn. I have good memories of this place. It had the drive up and you would push the button and wait for the gal to take your order. Then she would bring it out wearing a uniform. No roller skates though? I know Baltimore had a lot of drive inns that are well known. I am glad to see drive inns making a come back. Of course Sonic being a drive inn! And I do see some drive inns from the past that are still operating! I would love to have a place like that I could hang out like a teenager, eat junk food and whistle at girls! Oh...that's right, I am 50 years old now. Probably look like an old fool if I did that now!
Posted by Rivers End | June 26, 2009 7:40 PM
Posted on June 26, 2009 19:40