Coke or Pepsi? Back in the 1960s Coke sold twice as well as Pepsi. But we debated which to sell. Big chains get reduced prices for showing a brand in their advertising. We were just a small restaurant. Most of the family thought we should sell Coke but mom had always liked Pepsi. So we ended up selling both. That always was a probably because a good share of customers didn’t really have a preference.

The only diet drink we sold was TaB, from Coca-Cola. Diet Coke wasn’t introduced until 1982.

I can see in a picture from 1966 that we are selling a 7 oz. cup of Coke (or Pepsi) for 19 cents and 14 oz. for 29 cents.

We also had one of these Hires root beer barrels. You know what is inside? Not much! Just a tank for about a gallon and a half of syrup and piping. This machine mixed one part syrup to four parts of carbonated water. Tanks for the cola syrups were larger and off to the side of the soda fountain. The carbonation came from a tank of CO2 in the basement. It was required to have the CO2 tank chained to a wall as it was under pressure.

One thing you can make with Root Beer is a Root Beer float (yum!). Simple to make with just the RB and some ice cream.

A true milk shake is made with milk and ice cream. A lot of places today serve “shakes” that come completely out of a dedicated machine. Those are nothing but frozen milk. We would put in a squirt of flavored syrup, ice cream and milk and take it over to a machine like the one on the left to stir it up for about a minute. Whenever you took it off the machine it would spray a little off the spindle. At the end of day there would be a line on my shirt across my chest from milk shake spray.

We served a lot of coffee; as do most restaurants. I think it 35 cents for a 6 ounce cup. We served coffee in a foam cup as everything was disposable. I think foam cups are now illegal in New York and some other states. I don’t remember what brand of coffee we sold.

We had a drip coffee machine with a burner on both sides to keep the coffee warm. Everybody at least once put an empty coffee pot back on one of the burners. It only took about 10 minutes for the pot to crack.

Next week: Ice Cream