When I was a junior in high school I got a part time job after school. It was an ideal job because I only had to work 2-3 evenings each week and every other Saturday. I was able to work with friends that I had known my whole life. The family that owned the place was really friendly and we were treated well. Have you seen the movie The Sandlot? The store they buy the baseballs from, Vincent Drug, is where I worked. And we had a soda fountain in the back and my friends and I were Soda Jerks.
This drug store was old and very cool! The pharmacists would do all of their work by hand and even would sometimes mix the drugs in a mortar and pester. We made everything at the soda fountain from scratch.
The soda was hand mixed using syrups and soda water. We would make our own root beer syrup (I used to know the recipe, I wish I had written it down) and would serve Ironport (tastes like rootbeer mixed with Coke mixed with spices.) I used to make ice cream shakes and malts, ice cream sodas and floats, banana splits and sundaes, and we had a counter full of penny candy. To this day I still need to tell Jessie: You DO NOT have to buy penny candy only with pennies... we did take dollars for penny candy. At the counter we had a machine that could mix 5 shakes at once.
All of the syrups for the deserts could be used to flavor sodas as well. Cherry Coke was normal, Vanilla Coke was odd, Chocolate Coke was pushing it, but one guy used to order his Coke with pineapple and butterscotch ... do you need a minute to push back your gag reflex? I did too.
Last night was the first time I had thought of this place in a long time. I was having dinner with Candice and Hutch, we made our own chicken pot pie thank you very much, and for dessert we made shakes. They got this shake mixer for their wedding years ago and I got to use it. It honestly kind of felt like going home. I mixed our shakes and made a mess and even got to add candy for the first time ever. Mr. Vincent did not like us adding candies to the ice cream mixes. I miss that old place and wish it was still open if for nothing else than to belly up to the counter for a strawberry ice cream soda.
(These pictures were found on the web. Only the picture of the store itself is an accurate depiction of Vincent Drug. The other images are stock photos of other soda fountains and equipment. I sadly do not have any images of my own.)
5 comments:
I miss that place too! I get a little sad every time I drive by and see it sitting empty.
This is so funny because as I was reading it I was imagining you, being a 90 year old woman talking about the "old days". It is so cool that this was around not that long ago.
Mmmm...pot pie, milk shakes and getting Lost. That was an awesome evening.
How did I not know that the Sandlot was filmed right here in our own little town???
Cool store. Mmmmm milkshake.....
Too funny! I just thought of this place today. I was at work, and I asked everyone if they ever went there. One girl had no idea what I was even talking about. (That made me feel old!) I miss that place so much! I use to beg my mom to take me there for the penny candies! Mmmm!! What memories!!
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