The increased number of automobiles during the 1920s and 1930s played a significant role in the development of new kinds of restaurants. In the early 1920s, J.G. Kirby, a successful candy and tobacco wholesaler, came up with the idea of serving people food in their cars. Kirby decided that a lot of people who drove cars would also like to stay in them while they ate instead of getting out and going into a restaurant.
Pig Stand Company: Kirby opened his first drive-in restaurant on the Dallas-Fort Worth Highway in the fall of 1921 and called it the Pig Stand. He was definitely on the right track in combining food service and cars. More and more drive-in restaurants soon opened all across America. The people who waited on the customers in their cars were called carhops. Looking at today's cars, it is hard to guess why that name was used. However, cars in the 1920s and 1930s had running boards, so the carhops had to step or hop up onto the running boards in order to take orders.
A & W Restaurants: In 1919, Roy W. Allen had a walk-in root beer stand in Lodi, California. This restaurant was shaped like a barrel. In 1920, he expanded his business in California to Sacramento, and in 1923 he formed a partnership with Frank Wright. They opened three A&W (A for Allen and W for Wright) walk-up root beer stands in Houston. In 1924, Wright sold his shares in A&W to Allen, who came up with the idea of selling franchises for A&W root beer stands. By 1933, there were well over 100 A&W root beer stands across the country. The Pig Stand drive-in also continued growing and spread to California. The automobile was really changing the restaurant business.
Big-Boy: In 1937, Robert C. Wian, Jr., a restaurant owner, developed a double-decker hamburger sandwich called the Big Boy. Based on this sandwich, he started franchising drive-in restaurants. These drive-in restaurants also offered some inside counter-type service for people who wanted to get out of their cars for a while.
The 1940s and '50s were the heyday for drive-in restaurants, which rapidly spread from the warmer states all across the country. Carhops served meals in flashy uniforms, and some even wore roller skates as they served customers. Permanent menu cards and speakers appeared in parking areas so that carhops would only have to deliver orders. The drive-in was part of the American way of life. However, as time went on, competition in the form of refreshment stands and other fast food restaurants became much stronger, and drive-ins started to fade from the American scene in the late 1960s. A few still remain today.
Refreshment Stands Emerge
People really liked the products-usually ice cream and beverages- sold at refreshment stands. These stands could be built at a reasonable cost and weren't as expensive to operate as drive-ins because little labor was needed. People could simply walk up to a window and order what they wanted.
Dari-Freeze: Chains of refreshment stands soon began to emerge. Thomas Carvel started to sell ice cream at his stores in the 1930s and had a chain of 200 stores by the early 1950s.
"Dairy Queen": The first "Dairy Queen" store opened in Joliet, Illinois, after a successful all-you-can-eat-for-ten-cents promotion of a new soft ice cream that had been developed by J.F. McCullough. The store where the initial promotion took place sold over 1,500 servings within the first two hours, and store owner Sherb Noble knew he had found a good product. He opened the first "Dairy Queen" store in 1940. The growth of "Dairy Queen" slowed down during World War II due to the rationing of dairy products. However, after the war, the growth of "Dairy Queen" was so great that it quickly surpassed other fast food chains in size. There were 100 stores in 1947 and 1,400 in 1950.
"Dairy Queen" continues to grow in the 1980s. There are now 5,000 stores. Several acquisitions have also been made. In 1981, the company acquired a chain of 82 "Golden Skillet" fried chicken outlets. In 1986, it acquired the "Karmelkorn" chain, and in 1987, the "Orange Julius" chain. Now "Dairy Queen," "Karmelkorn" and "Orange Julius" stores are being combined into a single mall outlet called the "Treat Center."
Tastee-Freez: In 1950, Tastee-Freez was founded by Leo S. Maranz. The first stores were primarily walk-up units serving soft-serve ice cream products. Today, there are approximately 430 units located in 38 U.S. states and in Canada. Smaller units serve the traditional, popular, soft-serve ice cream. At the larger family-type restaurants, customers can order from an expanded menu.
