In the good old days, mom cooked all the food the family ate. Eating out at a restaurant was a rare occasion calling for wearing nice clothes, and your best table manners. Now we’ve changed into a society that eats out several times a week at fast food restaurants dressed in jeans or brings home pre-cooked food almost daily. Drive-ins are a way of life for fast food, cleaners, banks and most of our business dealings.
I ate my first hamburger in 1948 at a drugstore soda fountain counter in Eureka, Utah. It came complete with onions, lettuce, tomato and pickles and cost less than a quarter, with potato chips and a soft drink. What a treat to eat out. McDonalds came to my town in California in 1955. Hamburgers were then fifteen cents each and an instant hit because many moms had gone back to work during and after World War II. They loved the thought of hot food for the family picked up on the way home from work. My widowed mom and I enjoyed eating out at McDonalds when she returned home from her shift as a telephone operator.
Drive-in restaurants were the big deal in the 1950s. Teens loved to hang out in their parent’s car or in their own car, if they had one. Listening to the latest hit tunes, most likely Elvis or the Four Lettermen, while flirting with their high school friends was a favorite past time. Young ladies employed as carhops, some wearing roller skates, came to your car window and took your food order. Later, they brought your food out to you, and picked up your tray when you put your lights on. What fun to eat in your car!
My first real job in my teens was as an A & W Root Beer Drive-in carhop. Dressed in my brown and orange uniform with its cute cap, I really thought I had arrived. I found out that it was hard work being a carhop and not that profitable. I think I made about a dollar an hour plus tips. Carrying heavy trays out to carefully place on car windows, then picking them up later, and dealing with disgruntled customers wasn’t as enjoyable as it looked. But I did get free lunches with all the root beer in frosty mugs that I could drink.