Asoda shop, also often known as amalt shop (aftermalted milk) and as amalted shop , is a business akin to anice cream parlor and adrugstoresoda fountain. Interiors were often furnished with a large mirror behind amarble counter with goose-neck soda spouts, plus spinning stools, round marble-topped tables, and wireframesweetheart chairs.
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The counter-service soda fountain was introduced in 1903. Around that time, drugstores began to attract noontime customers by adding sandwiches and light lunches. The beverage menu at a soda shop usually includedice cream sodas,[1][2] chocolatemalts, fountaincolas, andmilkshakes.
In the first decades of the 20th century, the shops were also considered sober alternatives to bars as social venues. A 1915 issue ofSoda Fountain magazine said: "The soda fountain of today is an ally oftemperance... Ice cream soda is a greater medium for the cause of temperance than all the sermons ever preached on that subject."
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During the 1930s and 1940s, thejukeboxes in such establishments made them popular gathering spots for teenagers, as noted in the 1940s song "Jukebox Saturday Night" (tune by Paul McGrane and lyrics by Al Stillman):
Pop Tate's Chocklit Shoppe is a fictional soda shop created byBob Montana as a setting for the characters in hisArchie comic books and comic strips. It was based on real-life locations frequented by teenagers inHaverhill, Massachusetts in the 1930s, the Crown Confectionery and the Chocolate Shop on Merrimack Street, and the Tuscarora on Winter Street; and the character of Pop Tate was inspired by the Haverhill shops' Greek immigrant owners. In the years 1936 to 1939, when Montana went to high school in Haverhill, he joined his friends at the Chocolate Shop counter and made sketches on napkins. A decade prior toArchie, the Sugar Shop was a hangout for the teenagers in Carl Ed's comic stripHarold Teen.
Soda shops are often settings in films and TV shows. InThe Twilight Zone's "Walking Distance" episode, a soda shop is a framing device and a link to the past for Martin Sloan (Gig Young). The popular TV showHappy Days took place in twomain sets: the protagonist's home and a soda shop.
The shops appear in films includingHarold Teen (1934),Orson Welles'The Stranger (1946),Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) andPleasantville (1998). The gang fromScooby-Doo are often seen frequenting a malt shop. A malt shop also plays a key point inBlast from the Past, reflecting changes in the surface world while the main characters are underground, unaware of what has happened.
The protagonist of theyoung adultscience fiction novelHave Spacesuit Will Travel byRobert A. Heinlein works in a drug store soda fountain.
