I happened to be in Elyria recently, and while heading for home I saw the vision above; namely, the former Elyria Burger Chef located at the bend in the road where Lake Avenue meets West Avenue.I'm still not sure why the address of the restaurant was indicated as 'Lodi Street' in the 1968 ad (at left).
Anyway, I had known that I was going to pass the old restaurant that day, so I brought my camera along just to grab this shot. Strangely enough – or perhaps by divine intervention – the JESUS SAVES sign was installed earlier that day (I saw the workers putting it up), just in time to make it into this shot and onto the internet for all eternity.
The menacing sky makes me think that it was no accident.
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UPDATE (June 28, 2016)I drove by the building on June 9, 2016 and noticed that the former Burger Chef had recently been torn down. Sorry, Burger Chef and Jeff!
5 comments:
I looked up your last post about BC to get to that link and now have that cursed song in my head. Thought maybe there was a shot of that old BC on there. I sent him the photo of the Oberlin one and I don't think he has added it yet........
Ah, yes--the accursed Burger Chef song. It kinda sounds like Harry Chapin ("Cats in the Cradle," etc.)
I think you should go back and have another listen, Linda!
Ah, yes, the old Oberlin Burger Chef (later Rax Roast Beef). Quite a real estate story behind that one. Originally built as the new home of the Oberlin Co-op bookstore, the Co-op found that by locating east of downtown where the students had to walk past the other merchants to get to the bookstore, they were losing their non-text sales (pens, notebooks, etc) to those other merchants. This was not an inconsiderable loss of income to the Co-op, so Bill Long, Co-Op director, cast about for a solution. He found it in NACS, the National Association of College Stores, which bought the building from the Co-op and gladly moved from their dingy digs in Westervelt Hall to this much newer building. When NACS outgrew the building, they sold it to the franchisee who converted it to a Burger Chef, unless I'm mistaken the first fast-food franchise restaurant in Oberlin.
The former editor of the College Store Journal magazine used to go to lunch at the Burger Chef and frequently ate in the booth where his desk used to be located.
from an old-time NACS employee (1979-93).
The reason the old address said Lodi Street is because that part of Lake Ave used to be Lodi Street. The streets in that area have changed drastically over the years. I'll have to send you some maps that will illustrate it better than I could ever explain here. You can kind of see it on this one: http://www.lakeshorerailmaps.com/lse/lsry/images/lodi%20street%20route%20map.jpg
Dan-The version going through my head was the one from YouTube, the old commercial with the saccharine woman's voice, sounding like the female part in 1971's "Stay Awhile" by The Bells.
Anonymous-Interesting! I don't doubt certain Oberlinians fought a fast food franchise coming to town, no matter how much the residents wanted it.
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