Stuart's Club Grill Drive-In Restaurant At 3401 North Main St.

[Michelle C]

Nope. They were not smoking grass, only the store bought stuff.

[Specwriter]

Blame it on my 60s birth, but while I was reading, I was thinking "what the hell were your cousin and her friends doing smoking grass in front of a 12 year old?"

Your definition of having "a smoke out" and mine are quite different, lol.

 

Makes me think of that scene in the Cheech and Chong movie. 

[SpaceGhost]

So a picture popped up on reddit claiming to be a Drive-In from Houston in 1957. As with most things on the internet, I have no idea if this is true or not. I need some help identifying if this drive in is actually from Houston. Supposedly the pipes blew A/C into your car.

 

Anyone recognize it?

[gmac]

 

[mollusk]

I've seen this picture before; IIRC it was labeled as being taken at a Prince's (which would make Nortons of Houston the family in the Caddy).

 

The clear plastic tubes at the corners of the back window are also a/c ducts - most of the car systems of the '50s had the evaporator in the trunk.

[dbigtex56]

Cadillac, shmaddillac. I prefer the '56 Chevy parked just beyond it.

[dbigtex56]

2 hours ago, blue92 said:

But the 1st to use those tubes was a drive in movie theater.  

Slightly off topic - I lived in the North during the era of the drive-in theater, so never saw the a/c tube system. However, many had electric heaters on cords that could be threaded through the window on cool summer nights. The South is really better for drive-ins, not only because of the climate, but because sunset arrives so much later in the North; usually it would be around 9PM before it was dark enough for the movie to be visible. And heater or no heater, winters were impossible. During the off season, theaters would invariably post this sign:
CLOSED FOR THE SEASON
    REASON?  FREEEZIN'!

[mkultra25]

3 hours ago, dbigtex56 said:

Slightly off topic - I lived in the North during the era of the drive-in theater, so never saw the a/c tube system. However, many had electric heaters on cords that could be threaded through the window on cool summer nights. The South is really better for drive-ins, not only because of the climate, but because sunset arrives so much later in the North; usually it would be around 9PM before it was dark enough for the movie to be visible. And heater or no heater, winters were impossible. During the off season, theaters would invariably post this sign:
CLOSED FOR THE SEASON
    REASON?  FREEEZIN'!

 

Not exactly the North (the Paonia was in Colorado), but close enough climate-wise to justify the same signage:

 

[blue92]

So what's the connection with the Dallas stores?

[brucesw]

I don't know anything about Dallas.  There is an Antoine's there that some listings spell as Antone's, maybe a copy cat?  One of the articles above mentions the Antone's Famous group distributing the sandwiches as far away as Nashville so there may have been some in Dallas.

[JohnyWalter]

Good review !

[Earlydays]

On 5/13/2018 at 5:13 PM, brucesw said:

I don't know anything about Dallas.  There is an Antoine's there that some listings spell as Antone's, maybe a copy cat?  One of the articles above mentions the Antone's Famous group distributing the sandwiches as far away as Nashville so there may have been some in Dallas.

Used to go to the Dallas store for years and their sandwiches tasted exactly the same as the ones in Houston. It was spelled Antone's and also run by a Lebanese family.

[Subdude]

I think this was discussed once and posters tracked it down to the Prince's Hamburgers on North Main.

 

[houwest]

It wasn't a Princes but it was on N.Main, just west of the Hollywood Cemetery.  I think it was a Baileys but could have been a Stuarts..

 

[mkultra25]

58 minutes ago, houwest said:

It wasn't a Princes but it was on N.Main, just west of the Hollywood Cemetery.  I think it was a Baileys but could have been a Stuarts..

 

 

That one was definitely a Stuart's. It survived with the original structures largely intact and operated as a Mexican restaurant, Casa Grande, for some years until they finally closed and everything was bulldozed several years ago in preparation for a redevelopment that has yet to occur.

 

http://swamplot.com/the-casa-grande-takedown-has-begun/2015-06-22/

[Specwriter]

3 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

 

That one was definitely a Stuart's. It survived with the original structures largely intact and operated as a Mexican restaurant, Casa Grande, for some years until they finally closed and everything was bulldozed several years ago in preparation for a redevelopment that has yet to occur.

 

I remember as a child seeing the very large Stuart's sign from the North Freeway as we traveled home from downtown. It made me a bit nervous.

[IronTiger]

11 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

 

That one was definitely a Stuart's. It survived with the original structures largely intact and operated as a Mexican restaurant, Casa Grande, for some years until they finally closed and everything was bulldozed several years ago in preparation for a redevelopment that has yet to occur.

 

http://swamplot.com/the-casa-grande-takedown-has-begun/2015-06-22/

Casa Grande seems to have heavily modified the structure, and even the canopies that fronted North Main don't seem original. Google Earth aerials from the 1940s up to the 1970s show a more distinctive chevron-shape, it wasn't until the 1990s until the canopies were rebuilt (along with the original kitchen building being heavily modified and expanded), with them directly off of North Main. Of course, give how garbage quality the old aerials are, I wouldn't take that as full truth.