Most of us in our fifties can still remember the days of drive-in restaurants. From my travels across the county in the sixties, I can even remember a few A&Ws which I also believe toyed with roller skates.

My most vivid memory is Odell's Sandwich Shop in Mount Airy, NC which continues to make its famous Big Moe. It still operates as a drive-in where you place your order on speakers near your car. The food is delivered by young guys but they are not on skates.

I first visited Odell's in the early sixties as teenager and was there as recently as last fall.

When I heard Emerald Isle and Andy's were going to recreate a drive-in restaurant to help celebrate their 50th birthday, it did not take much arm twisting to get me to put it on my beach schedule.

The beach weather is so nice that we just had to squeeze in a beach walk first. Last night's stroll by the ocean waters was the best of the summer so I was hoping for a repeat, and it turned out that we were not disappointed.

Since it was 7:30 pm when we got off the beach, we were a little worried that Emerald Isle and Andy's might have run out of food or closed, but we drove down Emerald Drive and had no trouble finding the spot since there were people in the street trying to flag down customers.

We didn't need any convincing. We soon had our big white Titan truck parked, our order placed, and our heads in another time and place with great music and Andy's staff zooming around on roller skates.

We enjoyed burgers, fries, orangeade and lemonade. Our meal was less than ten dollars which was also a treat. Seeing a burger basket on the dash brought back memories.

I think we closed down the drive-in but it was still a lot of fun. The food was great, the atmosphere fantastic, and it made me wish Emerald Isle could have a big celebration every year.

We even bought a couple of the commemorative pins for the birthday celebration. They are also pretty neat.


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Tags: Beach life, small town life, birthday drive-in