Long after heyday, soda fountain pharmacies still got fizz
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There's one in Kent, Ohio - or at least there was when P1 and P2 were in pharmacy school - as everybody a rotation there.
The jukebox plays Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” as Malli Jarrett and Nathaniel Fornash take turns at the Griffith & Feil Drug food counter preparing old-fashioned, soda-fountain phosphate drinks.
Soda fountains like this were hugely popular a century ago. Often located in pharmacies, they were a gathering spot during Prohibition when bars shut down. But over the past half century, their numbers fizzled, relegating soda fountains to the scrapbooks of U.S. history.
In West Virginia, Ric Griffith is keeping the tradition going. His 131-year-old business is a Norman Rockwell scene and time-travel tourism all wrapped into one.
“When you had a soda fountain, people would stay longer, they’d sit down and they’d share stories,” Griffith said. “It would not become the place where you grabbed lunch. It was a place where you had an experience.”
Griffith and his daughter, Heidi, are pharmacists whose pharmacy staff works in the back. Up front, the restaurant offers daily lunch and dinner specials. Customers soak in the ambience: the jukebox, neon-pink signs, black-and-white photos of local landmarks, marbled counters, retro padded stools and a metal-tiled ceiling.
And, of course, those tart-and-sweet phosphate drinks.
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https://apnews.com/article/soda-foun...82d9d302b2584f
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