Okay, as you might have noticed, the Froz-T-Freez isn’t an actual Drive-In. It’s only a blog. And this is how it got started.
Years and years ago, I had daydreams of opening a record store.
But that doesn’t really explain anything.
Concurrent and somewhat coincidental to my frequent record-store-owning-and-operating daydreams, I came to develop a love of what I would call “authentic” fast food establishments: hamburger/shake stands with car hops or walk up windows, taquerías, Hawaiian plate lunch Drive-Inns, roadside diners (still haven’t really found a good one of these yet), etc. The smaller the town, the better. The more local and idiosyncratic the menu and condiments, the better. Secret menus or code names for certain items or variations of preparation, known only to the initiated, have come to play a big part in the mythology. Another key factor is what James Murphy refers to as borrowed nostalgia.
At some point in my daydreaming, the obsession with drive-ins began to converge with the record store thing. It went through many iterations, but the final business model was that of the record store soda fountain. It would simply be a new variation on the drug store soda fountain which permeated America in days of old. The sodas and shakes would be authentic, the jukebox would be free, the soda jerk would be friendly and accommodating yet have impeccable musical taste, and the hipness and diversity of the kids who hung out there would be almost utopian. Strange that in my daydreams I wanted to own and operate a teenage hangout when in reality I usually can’t stand places that are teenage hangouts.
But anyway. It turns out that I don’t really want to open such a business badly enough to devote my heart and soul to it, so it remains a pleasant daydream. And instead of a record store soda fountain, I have this here Froz-T-Freez. I guess my ultimate goal is to be that friendly and accommodating soda jerk with impeccable taste. I’m not in it for the money, so I tend to stock the racks only with the things I love. If you’re browsing you may find things you already know and like, or you may find something new. But we cook everything to order, so if something’s not here that you would like on the menu, just let me know. We may actually have a secret name for it already.