Before drive-thrus became routine and dinner became something we grabbed on the run, going out for a hamburger, a frosty mug of root beer, or an ice cream cone could feel like a family event. This is a look back at when fast food wasn’t really about eating fast—it was about going somewhere together.
Part of The American Time Capsule — remembering the foods we ate, school cafeterias and the “lunch ladies”, the restaurants we loved, the meals we shared, and the family traditions that made ordinary moments around the table unforgettable.
Has McDonald’s sold more hamburgers than there are stars in the sky?
It certainly feels that way.
Today fast food is just…
food.
It’s something we grab between errands.
Something we eat while driving.
Sometimes we don’t even get out of the car.
But when I was growing up…
Fast food wasn’t dinner.
It was an occasion.
Mom didn’t have to cook.
Dad didn’t have to fire up the barbecue.
And when Dad suddenly announced,
“Let’s go get some hamburgers,”
five kids suddenly had something to celebrate.
Going Out Was a Treat
Nobody announced,
“Let’s grab something quick.”
Instead, Dad might suddenly say after we’d spent an afternoon watching the planes take off and land from the fence at Lambert Field,
“Let’s go get some hamburgers.”
And instantly the day got even better.
Those afternoons at Lambert Field were an adventure all their own, something I remember in Airports Before We Had to Take Our Shoes Off
We didn’t eat out very often.
So when we did…
It felt special.
McDonald’s was our favorite.
And for a family our size, there was another reason Mom and Dad liked it.
It was affordable.
Back then, Mom and Dad could feed all seven of us—two adults and five hungry kids—cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes for less than five bucks.
Try doing that today.
Nobody was studying a menu trying to decide between thirty different combinations.
Hamburgers.
Cheeseburgers.
Fries.
Shakes.
That was about all we needed.
And when you’re a kid who has just spent part of the afternoon with his nose pressed against an airport fence watching airplanes…
a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake was a pretty good way to finish the day.
A&W Was Pure Americana
One of my favorite memories was going to the A&W drive-in.
There was something magical about those frosty glass mugs of root beer.
A carhop on roller skates would glide out to the car to take our order.
We kids admired her skill.
She’d disappear back toward the restaurant, then somehow return balancing a tray loaded with heavy glass mugs filled with root beer.
She’d hook the tray onto the driver’s-side window.
Those weren’t paper cups.
They were real glass mugs, so cold they were already frosted over by the time you wrapped your hands around one.
And if you were really lucky…
A root beer float.
Vanilla ice cream floating in icy A&W root beer, slowly melting into that creamy foam at the top.
Half the challenge was keeping that heavy, slippery, frosty mug from sliding out of your hands and ending up on the floor of Dad’s car.
For a few minutes, the back seat became remarkably quiet.
Slurping was about the only sound you heard.
To a kid…
Life didn’t get much better than that.
The automobile was part of the experience too, back when cars were more than transportation and seemed to have personalities of their own, something I remember in Every Car Had a Personality.
When Ice Cream Meant Going Somewhere
Dairy Queen was the simpler treat.
There wasn’t much decision-making involved.
Vanilla.
Chocolate.
Or, if you wanted to get fancy, a swirl of both.
The machine curled the soft ice cream higher and higher into a sugar cone, finishing with that little twist at the top.
Then it was handed across the counter and you had one immediate responsibility:
Eat it before it melted down your hand.
That was Dairy Queen.
Simple.
Cheap.
And to a kid on a warm summer evening…
pretty close to perfect.
But growing up in St. Louis, we had something else.
Ted Drewes Was a St. Louis Tradition
Ted Drewes Frozen Custard wasn’t simply another place to get ice cream.
It was St. Louis then and St. Louis still today.
The family-owned business had been around since 1929, and its Chippewa location eventually became one of those Route 66 landmarks that generations of St. Louis families simply knew.
Ted Drewes became part of the roadside culture surrounding America’s most famous highway, a world of family travel I remember personally in Route 66: The Mother Road.
And this wasn’t ordinary soft-serve ice cream.
It was frozen custard.
Thick.
Rich.
And eventually famous for the Concrete, a frozen-custard treat so thick they could turn it upside down before handing it to you.
For St. Louis kids, places like Dairy Queen and Ted Drewes represented something that has become harder to explain.
We didn’t have a freezer at home stocked with a dozen varieties of premium ice cream and frozen desserts.
If Dad said we were going out for ice cream…
we went somewhere.
Everybody climbed into the car.
We drove there.
We stood around deciding what we wanted.
Then we ate it before it melted.
The ice cream—or frozen custard—was certainly part of the attraction.
But so was getting there.
Going out for ice cream was something the family did together.
Before Extra Crispy
Kentucky Fried Chicken was simply…
Kentucky Fried Chicken.
No Original Recipe versus Extra Crispy.
Just Colonel Sanders.
The bucket.
Mashed potatoes.
Gravy.
The best slaw.
And chicken that somehow tasted better because Mom hadn’t cooked it.
Kentucky Fried Chicken was different because we didn’t really think of it as going out to a restaurant.
The restaurant came home with us.
Dad would walk through the door carrying that familiar bucket, and suddenly an ordinary dinner at home had become something special.
None of us knew there was a little irony waiting years down the road.
Dad would eventually become the manager of three Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants himself.
I sometimes wonder whether, after spending all those years on the other side of the counter, he ever thought back to those first buckets he carried home to us…
and whether the Colonel’s chicken still tasted quite as special when it became Dad’s job.
That felt revolutionary.
White Castle After Midnight
Every town had its traditions.
Ours involved White Castle.
After a dance or concert, when almost everything else had closed for the night, someone in our group would inevitably declare:
“Let’s go get a sack of castles.”
Four or five of us would usually end up around midnight at the White Castle on Natural Bridge Road in Bridgeton, not far from Holiday Hill amusement park.
Somewhere along the way, fast food had changed for me.
As a kid, it meant piling into the car with Mom, Dad, and my brothers and sisters.
As a teenager, it became somewhere you went with your friends after Mom and Dad had gone to bed.
And White Castle was perfect for that.
Soft steamed buns.
Grilled onions.
And a hamburger patty that seemed about the size of a silver dollar.
Nobody ordered just one.
You ordered them by the sack.
Then four or five teenagers sat around a table seeing how many of those little things they could put away.
Sometimes a dozen didn’t seem unreasonable.
And after a dance, concert—or perhaps a night when somebody had managed to obtain a little beer—White Castle seemed to possess another mysterious quality.
It apparently made everyone sober.
At least that’s what we convinced ourselves.
A dozen or more tiny hamburgers later…
Everyone was certain they were perfectly capable of going home.
Whether we actually were…
is another story.
Cruising Had Its Own Restaurants
Some restaurants weren’t just places to eat.
They were where you went to see and be seen.
Steak ‘n Shake became one of the great cruising destinations.
The Steak ‘n Shake on Highway 67 in Florissant wasn’t simply somewhere we ate.
It was part restaurant and part automobile theater.
As a senior in high school, I cruised through in Mom’s Chevy Nova station wagon—not exactly the most intimidating machine on Highway 67.
Three years later, after Vietnam, I returned in my 1967 Pontiac Firebird 400.
I had improved my transportation considerably.
That Firebird belonged to an era when horsepower, cruising, restaurants, and teenage identity were all tangled together, something I explore further in America’s Muscle Car Religion
Guys cruised through the lot showing off their cars. Occasionally somebody parked with the hood raised long enough for a quick inspection.
Burnouts could get you banned, so most of the horsepower stayed reasonably civilized until the cars reached Highway 67.
And somewhere in the middle of all that chrome, gasoline and teenage testosterone…
we actually ate.
Fast Food Was Never the Main Attraction
Looking back, I don’t remember every hamburger.
I don’t remember every order.
I don’t even remember every restaurant.
I remember who I was with.
Mom and Dad.
My brothers and sisters.
Later, my friends.
My girlfriend.
The people I cruised with.
The conversations.
The laughter.
The ride home.
Today fast food is designed to get us fed and moving again as quickly as possible.
Back then, at least for us, getting the food wasn’t the point.
The point was going somewhere together.
The hamburgers disappeared in a few minutes.
The memories somehow lasted a lifetime.Looking back…
We weren’t really going out for hamburgers.
Or root beer.
Or frozen custard.
We were spending time together.
Those restaurants became landmarks in our memories.
Places where birthdays were celebrated.
Little League victories were rewarded.
First dates began.
Families laughed.
Teenagers cruised.
Friends gathered.
Today fast food is built around speed.
Back then…
It was built around the experience.
And somehow…
The food tasted better because the memories lasted longer.
🍔 YOUR TURN
What fast-food restaurant was a special treat when you were growing up?
Was it McDonald’s when hamburgers cost pennies, an A&W root beer served in a frosty glass mug, Dairy Queen on a summer evening, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken brought home for dinner, or a late-night sack of White Castles?
Maybe it wasn’t a national chain at all. Maybe your town had a drive-in, hamburger stand, frozen custard shop, or little roadside restaurant that everybody knew.
What did you always order? Who were you with? And is there a place from your childhood you’d give almost anything to visit just one more time?
Tell us the restaurant, the town, and what made it special in the comments.
Because sometimes the food wasn’t what we were really going back for.
It was the people sitting beside us.
🍔 Continue Exploring Food, Restaurants & Family Traditions
The food may have brought us through the door, but the people, places, cars, and traditions surrounding those meals are what turned an ordinary hamburger or ice cream cone into a memory.
-
🌆 Come Home When the Streetlights Come On
A look back at the childhood freedom of disappearing into the neighborhood for hours and knowing when it was finally time to head home. -
😄 How Did We Ever Make It to Adulthood?
Before helmets, constant supervision, and today’s safety rules, childhood came with considerably more freedom—and a surprising amount of risk. -
🔑 Everybody Remembers Their First Car
The first set of wheels changed everything—including where you ate, where you cruised, and who was sitting beside you when Mom and Dad were no longer along for the ride. -
🚗 The Trauma of the Driver’s Test
Before late-night White Castle runs and cruising with friends, you first had to survive the examiner, the clipboard, and the dreaded parallel-parking test.
← Return to 🇺🇸 The American Time Capsule
Bunker Rule
The problem was never the hamburger.
It was turning an occasional treat into an everyday habit.
Some things taste better when they still feel special.
Bunker Notice
This article isn’t an argument that fast food was healthier, restaurants were better, or a fifteen-cent hamburger somehow tasted superior because it cost fifteen cents.
It’s about what eating out meant to many families growing up in America.
When restaurant meals were occasional treats, piling into the family car for McDonald’s, balancing an A&W tray on the window, going out for frozen custard, or seeing Dad walk through the door carrying a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken could turn an ordinary evening into an event.
Later, those same restaurants became places we went with friends after dances, concerts, dates, and nights cruising around town.
The food was part of the memory.
But the people we shared it with were the part that lasted.
That’s what The American Time Capsule is here to preserve.