Monday, June 4, 2018

The Restaurants of Richard W. Head – Part 1

The original Hoop Drive-in on Henderson Drive
Since I started writing this nostalgia blog back in 2009, I’ve written about Lorain’s iconic Hoop Drive-in Restaurants many times.

I featured a 1956 St. Patrick’s Day ad here; a 1957 ad announcing the opening of the second Hoop Drive-in here; a 1959 Easter Dinner ad here; a 1960 ad announcing the addition of Sloppy Joes to the Hoop menu here; and a look at the various restaurants that succeeded the Hoop at its Henderson Drive location here.

I also did a two-part series on how three of the four area Hoop Drive-in Restaurants eventually became part of the Manners Big Boy chain.

Well, as a fitting follow-up to all this Hoop-la, I received a nice email back in April from Richard C. Head, the son of the Hoop’s founder. He wrote, "I found your Blog on Lorain County. Thanks for all the hard work.

"As additional information on the Hoop Restaurants and the Town Crier restaurant, the founder of all those restaurants was my father, Richard W. Head."

In a subsequent email, Richard noted that there were other restaurants besides the Town Crier Inn that his father was involved with, before he founded the Hoop Drive-in.

"The Butterfry Restaurant (to my knowledge) was my dad’s first restaurant in Lorain,” he explained.

Sure enough, the 1952 Lorain city directory listing for the restaurant with the not-too-healthy-sounding moniker included his father’s name as the man in charge.

One of Richard W. Head’s next endeavors was the Lorain Diner. I’ve written about it a few times, including this three-part series. The Lorain Diner was located a few doors east of the Pueblo on the same side of U. S. Route 6.
Feb. 29, 1952 Grand Opening Ad
1954 Lorain County Rural Directory listing
Richard C. Head provided me with this photo of him and his father, hard at work building the Lorain Diner. They’re actually in the rear of it.

This recent photo of the former Lorain Diner (now the home of West Side Tractor & Marine) shows part of the rear of the building where Richard and his father were photographed.
Next: The Hoop Drive-in

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