A&W's 90th Anniversary

A&W Root Beer and I have reached milestones this month.

It's been 90 years since the famed root beer company was founded in Lodi. And finally, I made it to age 65, making me eligible for Medicare. I still have to buy my diet root beer.

There is no guarantee of course, pholks, but it would be nice to make it as far as A&W has so far.
I was born in Stockton two days before D-Day, 1944. A&W was born in June 1919 in Lodi when entrepreneur Ray Allen mixed a batch of creamy root beer and sold it for a nickel.

Today, A&W is the number-one selling root beer in the world and is still mixed daily and sold at hundreds of A&W restaurants around the world. It costs more than a nickel but its unique blend of herbs, spices, barks and berries remains a secret. Allen purchased the formula for his drink from a pharmacist in Arizona.

I'm still 65 and don't really have many secrets.

But Allen, who teamed with employee Frank Wright from the original Lodi store in 1922 to form A&W, made the most of his secret. Today A&W Root Beer has become an empire which includes more than 675 A&W All American Food outlets in 15 countries and territories, and more than 600 additional points of distribution.
Visalian Bob Carey and his family have five A&W stores, two in Visalia and one each in Exeter, Tulare and Hanford. Son Craig Van Horn said as far as he knows, A&W has been in Visalia probably since the late 1940s and he thinks the original stand was close to or at the current Willis and Oak Street drive-in.

My first A&W encounter was in Oakdale when I was pretty darned young living in Knight's Ferry 12 miles away. It was a big deal when my family drove to Oakdale and stopped to buy a one-gallon glass bottle of frosty A&W.
And it was important to remember to bring along your empty jug back to save having to put down a deposit. If it was a good day, we bought a small mug at the drive-in before heading home. Of course, there was no diet root beer in those days and certainly few other drive-ins except Foster's Freeze and maybe a Dairy Queen. There were no golden arches, no clowns in boxes, no smiling freckled-faced girl with red pony tails, no guy with a crown on his head to distract us. A&W ruled and was the hot spot to cruise, an adventure I discovered soon after my 16th birthday on the last day of school of my sophomore year when I got my '53 Chevy two-door Bel-Air hardtop.
Van Horn has a different recollection of the refillable jug days.

“When my folks bought the Visalia store, I was probably eight or nine years old and it was my first job to stand on a box using a special brush to wash out the returned jugs,” he recalled this week.

His dad says a nickel could buy you an 8 oz. mug and one thin dime could get you a 14 oz. frosty mug of the secret recipe root beer. Bob thinks the gallon jugs went for about 75 cents and recalls a special promotion featuring a half-gallon of root beer and a pint of ice cream to be taken home for do-it-your self floats.

This weekend, the 90th anniversary will be celebrated all over the place but the headline event will be in Lodi, the Holy Grail of the business, on Saturday with live music and what is billed as a Grand National Cruise Night.
Cruise Nights have become a part of A&W's connection to the '50s and '60s nostalgia theme and Visalia has long had one of the biggest, if not the biggest, turnouts anywhere. It's normally held the third Saturday of the month, although there have been a couple of extra ones at other locations.

Van Horn said he will be in Lodi Saturday for the big doings, not only to join in the celebration but to help his friend Peter King who operates the original site in Lodi where about 200 custom cars and roadsters and others will attract hundreds of visitors.

Of course, Craig and his dad, Bob Cary, have lots of expertise in putting on Cruise Nights, so helping with the details for a 200-plus car gathering shouldn't be much of a problem.

The Lodi event already is drawing nationwide media attention but local pholks who savor the legendary A&W Root Beer floats will be treated to one this weekend at all the stores.

On Friday afternoon, starting at 2 p.m. and lasting through 8 p.m., visitors will get a free float at the local stores.
That's a great deal pholks, but I really doubt you'll be able to bring in your old glass root gallon jug to be refilled, at least not for 75 cents.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com