soft drinks: Soda shop

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Soda shop

A Soda shop, also often known as a Malt shop (after malt, a sweet milkshake flavoring), is a business akin to an ice cream parlor and a drugstore soda fountain. Interiors were often furnished with a large mirror behind a marble counter with gooseneck soda spouts, plus spinning stools, round marble-topped tables and wireframe sweetheart chairs.The counter-service soda fountain was introduced in 1903, and around that same time, drugstores began to attract noontime customers by adding sandwiches and light lunches. The beverage menu at a soda shop usually included ice cream sodas, chocolate malteds, fountain colas and milkshakes. A 1915 issue of Soda Fountain magazine stated: "The soda fountain of today is an ally of temperance... Ice cream soda is a greater medium for the cause of temperance than all the sermon ever preached on that subject."There were many variations: Nashville's Elliston Place Soda Shop began as a drugstore soda fountain but became a plate-lunch restaurant after it was bought by Lynn Chandler in 1939. During the 1930s and 1940s, the jukeboxes in such establishments made them popular gathering spots for teenagers, as noted in the 1940s song, "Jukebox Saturday Night (tune by Paul McGrane and lyrics by Al Stillman).