100 Years of A & W Root Beer

Long ago and not so very far away, a family night out would be a fifteen-mile drive up U.S. 101 on the Oregon Coast, past Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park to the A&W drive-in just as the highway entered Seaside. The A&W featured car service, so our two young daughters could enjoy their burgers in the comfort of the back seat.

The Seaside A&W is long gone. A McDonald’s thrives nearby, testament to effective advertising and rigid uniformity. A&W restaurants are still around, but fewer than half as many as there were in the seventies.

Roy Allen opened his walk-up root beer stand in Lodi in 1919. The non-alcoholic cold beverage with “beer” in its name was an immediate hit in Prohibition days.

Allen took on a partner, Frank Wright, in 1923 and opened the first A&W (Allen & Wright) restaurant in Sacramento, 40 miles north from the original stand. Allen bought out Wright a year later. A year after that A&W sold its first franchise for the root beer; franchisees were free to add their own food items to the menu. By 1960, there were 2,000 A&W restaurants. Arguably this was the first successful restaurant franchise operation.

J. Willard Marriott bought a Washington D.C. franchise in 1927 and soon opened two more. Thirty years later he opened his first hotel.

A&W stored its beverage mugs in the freezer. Root beer served in frosted mugs became an A&W signature. A five-cent “baby” mug was free to toddlers. A franchisee in Lansing, Michigan claimed credit for inventing the bacon cheeseburger in 1963.

Roy Allen sold A&W and retired in 1950. The company has been bought and sold numerous times since then. The company formed a subsidiary, A&W Beverages, and began selling its root beer to grocery stores. That division has also been though multiple owners; currently it’s Keurig Dr. Pepper. The draft root beer is still sold only at A&W restaurants, though

A&W peaked in the 1970s, with 2,400 locations. By the 1980s, they were down to fewer than 500. Things are looking up for the company; today there are 1,100.

You can join in the A&W Centennial celebration on June 21. Live music, prizes and historical memorabilia will be at 216 E. Lodi Ave., close to the original root beer stand. When you’re satiated on root beer, Lodi is also known for its Zinfandel.

Huell Howser took his popular “California’s Gold” TV series to Lodi in 2007.
(A&W begins at 43:00)

One thought on “100 Years of A & W Root Beer”

  1. In the mid fifties my buddies and I would take our cars to the Saugus CA drag strip (the original home of the SoCal Timing Assn..soon to become the NHRA) and, on the way back to L.A. we’d stop at this little root beer stand and throw back the best root beer there was…never noticed if they served food as all we craved in that desert heat was that cold root beer…A&W was our beer until fake I.D.s worked.

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