Rich Dinkela of HookedonRoute66.com filmed this slice-of-life video at the typically busy Carl’s Drive-In restaurant in Rock Hill, Mo.
Carl’s remains one of the treasures of the old Manchester Road alignment of Route 66 in the St. Louis area. Carl’s has fewer than 20 stools to serve its customers, and nearly all of them are filled throughout a typical day of operation.
Norma Maret Bolin’s excellent “Route 66 St. Louis” book contains a lot of interesting stories and history about Carl’s, including these:
- The building was built in the 1920s as a gas station.
- It became the Foot Long Hot Dog Company in the mid-1930s, then the Good Food Drive Inn during the 1950s.
- It became Carl’s Drive-In in 1959.
- Carl’s uses the original recipe to make its draft root beer, which reputedly became the basis behind the nationally distributed IBC Root Beer.