Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Tik Tok Drive In Reunion was a blast.

We had a wonderful time at the Tik Tok Reunion this past weekend and wanted to say thank you to Jim Tyson of the Road Knights and Amy Snyder from the Portland Foursquare Church for all of their hard work organizing the show.

We had the Vintage Roadside booth on hand offering our Tik Tok t-shirt along with a few of our other shirts, including Pixieland, but there were two things we most looked forward to: the opportunity to hear firsthand from people who had been to the Tik Tok and to have the opportunity to display a handful of our Portland, Oregon restaurant items. We had original Tik Tok menus, a Tik Tok ashtray, 1963 Yellow Page ads for The Speck Drive In, and other items from classic Portland restaurants such as Waddle's, Jolly Joan's, The Stirrup Room, and more. Another highlight for us were the memories people jotted down in our Portland scrapbook. Here are a couple of examples:

"Looking for action on a Friday or Saturday night? Hit Jim Dandy's, then on to Yaw's, Scottie's, and the Tik Tok. Last chance was the Speck on Foster."

"Ate at the Tik Tok and walked over to Scottie's to request a song from dj Dick Novak. Announced our engagement on the radio (before we told our folks)." 1957

As our goal at Vintage Roadside is to collect and share as much history and as many stories as we can from these bygone places, events like the Tik Tok Reunion are invaluable. We want to say thank you to everyone who spent time with us sharing memories and stories, especially one gentleman who told us how he used to hang out with his hot rod for hours at the Tik Tok. The toll? A carton of milk and one toasted bun for $0.05. Thanks also to everyone who offered their appreciation for the history we're preserving and sharing through Vintage Roadside.

In other Tik Tok news we began work on a documentary about the Tik Tok Drive In. We'll have more information in the next few weeks regarding the film.

If you have memories of going to your favorite drive in you'd like to share we'd love to hear from you. Just click here which will take you to the Vintage Roadside contact form.

Be seeing you soon!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a callow youth, I worked for a time at the Tik Tok. I remember making simple syrup, shakes and a little bit of everything. Later, theh owener opened a small coffee shop out on Sandy and I worked there for a time as well.
Those were great times in Portland, a Portland that no longer exists. I worked at Jolly Joan, Leighton's Cafeteria, Union Station, Manning's on Broadway, Yaw's, The Town Tavern and a place famous for its bbq crab. I believe it was called simply The Broiler.
I did all that while going to Benson just at the beginning of the war when available local manpower was reduced to pimple-kids like me. www.cmalbrecht.com