Seven Historic Soda Shops to Seek Out This Summer

In a world of online dinner reservations and influencer-approved cocktail bars, dining in a place where your grandparents socialized over milkshakes and cheeseburgers can feel both comforting and refreshing. Here are seven soda fountains, scattered throughout the South and brimming with history, where you can grab a vinyl booth or spin on a barstool this summer.

Photo: courtesy of Pitt Street Pharmacy

Retro vinyl stools and checkered floors at Pitt Street Pharmacy.

I’ll lead with a personal fave: Few childhood memories of mine are as jarring as accidentally discovering chewed gum stuck under the soda fountain counter, but that never took away the excitement of visiting my hometown haunt. It was one of only two spots where I was allowed to order a Coke growing up: Atlanta’s World of Coca-Cola, and good old Pitt Street Pharmacy. Charlestonians have been enjoying the beverage in the classic glass bottle alongside Pitt Street’s award-winning grilled cheeses since 1937. It’s the best spot to kick off summer break for generations of locals and visitors, and these days I highly recommend you round out your meal with a scoop of locally produced Wholly Cow ice cream.

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Photo: courtesy of star drug store

The counter at Star Drug Store.

Known as the oldest drug store in Texas, Star marks its 156th year in business this year and its 120th anniversary in its current downtown location. The first desegregated lunch counter in Galveston and a survivor of numerous hurricanes, it proudly bears the nation’s oldest working neon porcelain Coca-Cola sign as its marker on 23rd Street. Popular dishes include the Star Omelet, a Mediterranean-style breakfast dish, and the notorious Shipwreck Float, a sweet combination of Coke, root beer, Dr. Pepper, cherry syrup, and vanilla ice cream.

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Photo: courtesy of payne’s drug store

Payne’s banana split.

Payne’s originally opened as a pharmacy and dry goods store in 1869, but it deemed itself a local favorite when it became the first place in Jackson County to offer Coca-Cola in the 1920s, all thanks to Payne family ties with the soda company. Wander into Payne’s on a Thursday afternoon and witness a timeless special: Senior citizens pay a nickel per scoop of ice cream. “So many regulars will stay awhile visiting with friends or running into old classmates,” says general manager Jessica Walton. “It’s particularly fun when someone who doesn’t know about the special comes up to pay and gets hit with sticker shock, but in a good way.”

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Photo: Alex Boerner

The old-school counter at the Soda Shop.

It’s no wonder a Southern college town as charming as Davidson is home to one of the region’s most cherished soda fountains. Wildcat memorabilia crowd the walls, including photos of the shop’s favorite celebrity customer and Davidson alum, Stephen Curry. “You step back in time when you walk into the restaurant,” says owner Misty Utech. Though the team updates the breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus from time to time, Misty loves that regulars can still order their usual plates, no matter how long they’ve been away. “Everything pretty much stays the same,” she says. Stay tuned to the shop’s social media for happenings to honor its seventy-fifth anniversary this October. (Also: Read author Mary Laura Philpott’s ode to the spot.)

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Mississippi’s oldest operating pharmacy and soda fountain also claims to be the oldest drugstore in the country run by the same family since its establishment. Founded in 1865 by Civil War surgeon Dr. AJ Borroum, the shop is now under the helm of his great-great-great-grandaughter, Lesley Mitchell, whose children make up the seventh generation of Borroum’s. The slug burger is a menu classic: a Depression-era meal designed to keep customers full on less, made of ground pork, soy flour, and spices flattened into a patty and deep fried in vegetable oil. Give it a try, or order a fried chicken sandwich, cornbread salad (only on Thursdays), or a hot fudge sundae, and ask for the story of a pre-fame Elvis leaving his guitar inside the shop.

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The quaint downtown of Slidell, thirty miles north of New Orleans, would not be complete—or nearly as charming—without the neighborhood’s favorite soda shop. Owner Angela Morant and her husband, Joshua, make all the ice cream entirely in-house (but don’t get too attached to a certain flavor—they change every week). Regular customers include various dogs licking on pup cups and local kids knocking out their homework. The soda shop’s latest claim to fame is acting as a recurring backdrop in the forthcoming Netflix movie A Christmas Kind of Love.

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Reopening Soon

On Caroline Street, the very stretch of roadway that won G&G’s Best Main Street in the South bracket, this historic gem will reopen its doors this summer under new ownership. Following an expansive four-year renovation, the Fredericksburg landmark will still serve its classic chicken salad and egg salad sandwiches, best paired with old-fashioned shakes. Dr. William B. Goolrick and friend C.A. Jones founded the pharmacy in 1869, and their enterprise gradually evolved to include a soda fountain in 1903. The newly revamped shop will feature exterior markings showcasing water levels of the many floods the building has survived since its construction in 1808. But the best part of the makeover? A Prohibition era–inspired bar will open in the old storage basement with a vault once used to store “prescriptions” of alcohol, a common loophole of the time. Milkshakes upstairs, cocktails below.