Four Winds Drive-in Grand Opening Ad – Oct. 1956

Many of us that grew up on the West Side of Lorain may remember that there used to be a Manners Big Boy down at the end of Oberlin Avenue where it meets Cooper Foster Park Road. The restaurant building was located on the northeast corner, where today there is a broad, sweeping turning lane for those heading north on Oberlin Avenue – with no evidence that anything was ever there.

Well, back in the mid-1950s, Four Winds Drive-in called that location home. The full-page ad (above) for the Grand Opening of the drive-in appeared in the Lorain Journal on Friday, October 19, 1956.

As you can see, the ad promotes the restaurant’s “authentic, old world recipe” pizza, “baked as it is in Sunny Italy... right before your eyes... not in pans, but on the tiles of our open hearth.”

The ad copy certainly wins me over. It notes, “In any language it means just plain delicious, for Neopolitan pizza is truly royal pastry. Though originated in the 17th Century, no one really knows when the pizza came to America, but all know it is the most popular of all Italian creations. Crisp, succulent, flavorful, aromatic, the pizza is either a snack or a meal.”

Four Winds Drive-in was an early player in Lorain’s pizza wars. Although Yala’s had opened in 1954, there were only four pizza places listed in the Lorain phone book in 1956 in that category: Four Winds Drive-in, Lusca’s, The Pizza House (located where Rosie’s Pizza is now) and Motto’s Pizza & Spaghetti House. (By the time of the 1957 book, the listings also included Giovanni’s, Fior’s Lake Road Spaghetti House and DeLuca Bakery.)

Here’s the 1956 phone book ad for Four Winds Drive-in.

By 1958, the Four Winds Drive-in had become the fourth location of Richard Head’s burgeoning empire of Hoop Restaurants. But as you can see from the ad below from the 1958 phone book, the Hoop still featured the popular Four Winds Pizza.

By 1961, the Hoop was still promoting its pizza in phone book ads, but without the 4 Winds tie-in.

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Just as the Four Winds Drive-in was getting started on Lorain's west side in October 1956, the Hoop over on Henderson Drive was introducing a high-tech gadget. What was it? Stop back here tomorrow to find out!