Second Hoop Drive-in Opens – June 1957

I'm too young to remember the Hoop Drive-in, but the more I think about it, the more impressed I am. It's a great story of a single restaurant on Henderson Drive becoming so popular that it expanded into multiple locations around Lorain and Elyria.

The second restaurant in the chain was the one on North Ridge Road just west of Route 57. The ad shown above announced its opening, and appeared in the Lorain Journal on June 29, 1957 – 58 years ago this Monday.

Eventually the success of the Hoop Drive-ins attracted the attention of the Manners restaurant chain, who ended up buying them, and hiring Richard Head, the man who operated them. (Mr. Head also operated the Lorain Diner.)

I did a two-part blog series on the history of the Hoops/Manners restaurants (here and here) as well as a post on the former Hoop/Manners location on the east side where a Denny's Diner was later built (here).

I like the modern, abstract graphics in the Hoop ad. It certainly gave it a unique, space-age feeling. It's nice that it plugged other local businesses, including the O'Neil Shopping Center, Lorain Creamery and Gelman Commission Co. (Gel-Pak).

I wonder what those free plastic banana boats mentioned in the ad looked like? I'll bet they looked like these (below) which are on Ebay right now, and are described as disposable, plastic banana boats.