Ye Olde Soda Fountain

Before fast food...there was the soda fountain. Anyone here remember them?

Once in a while on a special Saturday, my grandmother would take me to town. We would ride the bus....it was a big deal; it was like being chauffered. I didn't get to ride a bus too often (not even a school bus because I lived close enough to walk).

The soda fountains I remember were Walgreens and Woolworth's. I especially liked vanilla cokes.

There was another soda fountain which I believe is still standing today. It was an old pharmacy in a historic building. There were curio cabinets on display with interesting tins of salves. But the weirdest thing was the small coffins in the back of store. Apparently, many many years ago...if the cough syrup didn't do the trick, you could purchase a coffin on your return visit. Now, this was not something from "my day", mind you. This is just lore that was told to me when I inquired about the strange shaped pine box.

Another soda fountain was Legget's drug store and I used to always order a "purple cow" when we went there.

The last time I went through Mississippi I found an old soda fountain and they served the very best potato salad I have had in my life!

So...what for you? Coke or Pepsi? Cherry or vanilla? Root beer float?

Do you have a place like this in your town?

What are your soda fountain memories?

The town piazza in my little village was the drug store, complete with a soda fountain and about 6 swivelling stools (no backs).  I spent countless hours there while growing up drinking cokes and reading the latest comic books.  They served root beer in frosted mugs and had the best malts I've ever had. On one end of the counter were the gumball machines and on the other end was a large glassed in display of cashews.  Next to that was the small freezer  that held the ice cream sandwiches, dilly bars, fudge sickles, and pop sickles all accessed through a small top opening door.  Behind the stools were the candy shelves.  The wooden floor creaked with each step taken.  Ahhhh...those were the days.  Today that building is a small apartment building.  It breaks my heart each time I see it.

I remember the old pharmacy.  It had a back counter where you could sit on swivelling stools and order ice cream sundaes, drinks from the soda fountain and floats.  Chocolate bars cost 10¢, and I'd save a couple of days' worth of my milk money (7¢/day) for school so I could buy a chocolate bar.

Good lord this thread brings back memories..

                                                                    ..............OUTLAW

During the 70's, we used to walk home and stop at Fountain Drugs on Main Street in Tucker, Georgia. The soda fountain still operated. Today it has been turned into a restaurant/ bar. You can see it there on your left.

I remember soda fountains back in Cleveland in the 50's and 60's. They had them in kressgees.

before they became K-Marts, they also had them in all the drug stores.

You could get a soda, a shake, a malt, a hot dog a blt bacon and eggs a hamburger.

Back in Cleveland we called coke, pop and soda was what you got from the drugstore

fountain.

I still call coke pop, and some people call coke, pepsi.

But Pepsi's not the real thing.

And now the king of Pepsi is dead.

You old folks!   I just remember Coke in glass bottles!

I'm a flower child and soda fountains were long gone here by then.

I used to ride my bike or walk each day to the store.

Friendly's Ice Cream-a cone or a Watermelon Sherbet Cooler (soda water and watermelon sherbet with vanilla ice cream--quite delicious).  There was a very tall waiter there and I thought he was so cool, I had him give me his autograph.  Still have it!

Neighborhood drug store--candy or a Popsicle from their cooler.  I saved up for a year once to buy Dr. Scholl's Exercise Sandals from that store. 

Never been to a soda fountain.  What are the recipes exactly?  Flavored Coke sounds too sweet--it already has a ton of sugar--then you add syrup to it?

Flavored Coke sounds too sweet--it already has a ton of sugar--then you add syrup to it?

Yes.  The most popular syrup to add in my area was cherry, with vanilla coming in a distant second.  If memory serves me right, the Coke was made by combining the syrup with carbonated water by the "soda jerk" rather than starting with already made Coke.  If someone wanted a Cherry Coke they would add a squirt of cherry syrup before putting in the carbonated water.

Other popular treats in the freezer were Push-ups and frozen Milky Way candy bars.  Anyone remember those?  By the way, thanks for the proper spelling of "Popsicle". 

Yeah, everything tasted better at the soda fountain.  We still have a soda fountain where we live  all decorated from days past, but it's just not the same.

FlyingHighNow:

I looked at that picture before I read your post and I thought that looks like Tucker.  I live about 15 minutes from that spot.

I have vague memories of the soda fountain at Woolworths.  They closed the last Woolworth's in Atlanta about 25 years ago.  I don't really remember vanilla cokes or cherry cokes.  They were a little before my time.

Burger King here is called "Hungry Jacks" due to a small shop in Adeliade Australia owning the name "Burger King"....they have a machine that gives free soft drink refills....sometimes when I'm feeling "brave" I mix different soft drinks to make a "poor mans" cherry Cola! 

Does anyone remember those dorky soda jerk uniforms? The pointy hats?

In my area, Walgreen's was the first to institute "the uniform".

I don't remember the uniforms but the picture of the soda fountaim above is very simular to the one in our town.

When my Dad was a teenager, he use to work for Dove Candies in Chicago.  He ran the Soda fountain.   It had to be about 1950 give or take a couple of years.  When we were little, fast forward to the mid to late 1960,'s, he always knew where the best shakes, malts, sodas, etc. were.

Our favorite place was in Wisconsin on the way to visit cousins, an 8 hour road trip, but always split up by this stop.

 A very small town, but they had the best shakes, fries and burgers you've ever had in your life.  Just the Old time bar stools and a row of booths behind.  Painted that pale color green inside with the grill in front of the Bar stools. 

Chocolate shakes were my fav, after that black cows!

r

Hi Cameo:

I just now remembered that my dad was a soda jerk in the 1930s.

As a kid I had my vanilla shakes [still my fave flavor] at Woolworths, then later, for 25 cents, at a small-town creamery in the Midwest.

CoCoCoLa

Hey! Did anyone of you ever play "pop the balloon" for a Banana Split?

Our favorite place was in Wisconsin on the way to visit cousins, an 8 hour road trip, but always split up by this stop.

Do you remember where in Wisconsin?  I'm from Cameron, which is about 8 hours north of Chicago.