At the Soda Fountain
Once upon a time, just about anything you could dream up could be realized at the drugstore soda fountain.
It was yesterday’s answer to the corner coffee shop—a place where people could meet, talk, and have a tasty treat—but a lot more fun. Back in the day, corner drugstores graced almost every corner. And while a few still exist, no chain drugstore can live up to the legend of its small-time predecessors.
Consider this: would anyone today call their drugstore a “headquarters: a combination coffee klatch, office, and waiting room,” for Hollywood writers as William Holden’s Joe Gillis deemed Schwab’s Drugstore in Sunset Boulevard? Would today’s drugstore environment harbor a discussion by a group of prominent citizens about creating small-town publicity—that results in the nation’s most historic evolution trial?
While not every drugstore encounter had the national impact of the Scopes trial, a number of less profound soda fountain legends also linger on. Howard Johnson started his empire with a small drugstore in Wollaston, Massachusetts, where he tested out new ice cream recipes. Coca-Cola was originally sold as a patent medicine at soda fountains—for five cents a glass.
And Lana Turner was reportedly discovered buying a soda at the infamous “headquarters,” Schwab’s, although she actually skipped her typing class at Hollywood High to buy that soda at the Top Hat Café.
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