A&W Root Beer Opens in Lorain – June 1954

I'm still talking about beer – only this time it's root beer.

Seventy years ago this week, Lorain's A&W Root Beer stand opened on West Erie Ave. (the old 6 & 2) at Madison. Here's the Grand Opening ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on June 18, 1954.

As noted back on this post, there had been a root beer stand at that location since the 1930s. My mother remembered that it was a special treat to get a glass of root beer there in a frosted glass. She also recalled that it was run by the Buchanan family, who lived next door to the stand.

A late 1930s listing in the city directory indicated that at that time the stand was affiliated with Stewarts's Root Beer. Apparently with the change of ownership to Warren Gorman (as indicated in the ad above), the decision was made to switch to A&W and its distinctive orange buildings.

The A&W chain of roadside root beer stands dates back to 1919. According to its Wikipedia entry, there were 170 A&W franchisees by 1933 and 450 by 1950. And by 1960, there were more than 2,000 outlets.

A 1960s mug courtesy of eBay

Here's another ad for the Lorain A&W. This one's from the Journal of May 29, 1962.

Interestingly, another A&W Root Beer stand was only about 8 miles to the west in Vermilion on the same highway. That's the one I remember. I don't know if we ate there more than once or twice, but it was a landmark to watch for in Vermilion from the back seat of the family car.

Hey, A&W has their own bear mascot –the Great Root Bear – sort of a nonalcoholic version of the Hamm's bear.

A&W Root Beer has been a favorite topic on this blog, with several posts devoted to it.

The Root Beer Stand at Madison

Last week, I posted a 1964 ad for the Lorain A&W Root Beer stand that was located on West Erie Avenue at Madison. The stand first appeared in the Lorain Telephone Company directory in 1959, and in the Lorain City Directory in 1960.

It had several addresses, which only adds to the confusion about this restaurant.

The initial phone book address for the A&W restaurant was 2537 W. Erie, while the city directory just said it was on the corner of Madison and West Erie. Eventually, the city directory address was 2600 West Erie.

Did it really hop from one side of West Erie to another? It doesn’t seem likely, but I can’t say for sure. I suspect that since that area of town was outside regular Lorain city limits for so long, the addresses were probably still evolving or being decided on.

But there’s one thing I do know: there was a root beer stand at the corner of Madison and West Erie long before A&W.

How do I know? My mother remembers it from the 1930s, when she was growing up.

“My father took us there in his Reo," she recalls. "Root beer in a frosted glass was a real treat."

What did the root beer stand look like?

“It was a small building. Cars would park around it in a circle.”

1952 Aerial view of Madison and West Erie

Mom remembers that the stand was run by the Buchanan family. They lived right next door on Madison, to the south, according to the city directory.

It was a seasonal business. “It would get shuttered for the winter,” she noted.

According to the 1939-1940 edition of the National City Directory for Lorain, it was a Stewart's Root Beer stand. Evelyn Buchanan was listed as the manager.

It makes sense that the stand was affiliated with Stewart’s. Stewart’s Root Beer got its start in Mansfield, Ohio.

Anyway, it's difficult to know how long the root beer stand had been in business at that location when Mom was going there, or how long it lasted before A&W Root Beer came to town. The location was outside of town, and just not included in the city directories until the late 50s/early 1960s. (The standalone National city directory was the only book to include it; the regular Polk directories did not.) Plus the stand probably didn’t have a phone in the early days, making a phone book timeline impossible.

Today the southeast corner of Madison and West Erie is a forlorn sight (below).

Nevertheless, pleasant memories of root beer served there in a frosted glass remain.

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Root Beer and drive-in root beer stands have been a favorite topic on this blog. Besides my posts about A&W and Dog ’N Suds, I’ve written about Frostie Root Beer, the Frostop drive-in out in Huron, and the Richardson Root Beer stand on Oberlin Avenue.

Lorain A&W Root Beer Ad – May 26, 1964

One of my memories of Vermilion from when I was a kid was that my parents took us a few times to the A&W Root Beer stand there on U.S. Route 6. (It was located where Wendy’s is now.)

I first wrote about the Vermilion A&W here.

What’s strange is that Lorain had its own A&W Root Beer stand on Route 6 too, a few miles to the east of the Vermilion one. It was located at West Erie Avenue and Madison.

Here’s an ad for that Lorain stand, which ran in the Journal on May 26, 1964.

I don’t remember the Lorain A&W at all. It could be because Dad seemed to avoid that stretch of West Erie entirely, always using the W. 21st Street shortcut to save time whenever we were going west of Lorain.

Does anyone remember the Lorain A&W?

The Vermilion one is well-remembered, and the subject of a recent series of reminisces on the “You know you’re from Vermilion if....” Facebook page.

By the way, I happened to be in Windsor, Ontario a few days ago and passed an A&W Restaurant. The A&W operations in Canada are completely separate from that of the company based in the United States. (Read about the very successful Canuck version of A&W here.)

That got me to wondering: are there any A&Ws still in Ohio?

The corporate website answered my question. There are restaurants in Marion, Columbus, Whitehall and Zanesville. (I remember there was one north of campus on High Street when I was down at Ohio State in the late 70s. There was also one in Ashland, which I wrote about here.)

Click here to visit the A&W website to learn about the history of the chain, which is celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 2019.

The Ashland-Wooster Drive-in

If after reading yesterday's blog post you have a hankering to visit an A&W Restaurant, they're still around. The A&W website has a locator search engine, and it turns out there are still A&W's out there. Locations in Ohio include Kent, Tallmadge, Ravenna, East Liverpool and Orwell.

But if you'd like to experience the next best thing to a real vintage A&W Drive-in, why not take a nice drive down to Ashland and visit the Ashland-Wooster Drive-in? It was still a bona-fide old-time A&W Drive-in while I was in college, and every once in a while I would detour over to Ashland on the way home from Ohio State to get a chili dog for the last lap of the drive to Lorain.

According to their website, they've been there on US 250 since 1957, and were a franchised A&W until 1985 when the current owners took over. They still have carhop service (as well as drive-through service if you're in a hurry).

The drive down there is just a little over an hour.

And on the way home, don't forget a side-trip to Grandpa's Cheese Barn, as well as Fin, Feather & Fur Outfitters. They're both on US 250 as well, and only a few minutes from State Route 89, which you can take north to join up with State Route 58 again,

The photo of the Ashland-Wooster Drive-in above is from a flickr® site featuring great vintage sign photos, as well as other cool sets, by a photographer named Scott, who shot them all right here in Ohio. Click here to visit it!

Remember A&W Root Beer Stands?

1962 ad for the Vermilion A&W

Now that it's finally nice out, my thoughts automatically turn to the old drive-ins that my family used to go to back in the 1960's. One of them that I remember is the A&W Drive-in out in Vermilion on US Route 6 (back then it also included State Route 2 – thus it was 6 & 2).

It was a real treat to go there, and it's probably where I started my lifelong love of chili dogs. If I remember correctly, the Vermilion drive-in had those speakers that you spoke into to place your order. When it was ready, the carhop brought it out to you.

Here's a 1965 ad for the A&W Drive-ins. I don't remember the Vermilion carhops wearing stewardess uniforms, though!

1965 ad from the book Drive-in Deluxe by Michael Karl Witzel

Today the Vermilion A&W is long-gone; in its place at 4372 E. Liberty is a Wendy's restaurant.

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Strangely enough, there was an A&W stand in Lorain on US 6 that I don't remember it at all. It was located at 2600 W. Erie Avenue and first appeared in the city directory in 1960. It was right where Madison Avenue intersects with W. Erie Avenue.

I probably don't remember it because my father always took W. 21st to get to West Erie if he was going west, bypassing that area entirely.  Most likely, my family went to the Vermilion one because it was a nice drive and something to do. If other families thought the same way, maybe it had something to do with the Lorain restaurant disappearing from the city directory in 1969.

Anyway, here's a May 29, 1965 newspaper ad for the Lorain A&W.

And here's an ad from the Journal from a few years earlier that's probably a little politically incorrect!

August 20, 1963 ad from the Journal