8. How drug stores have changed
In The Best Years of Our Lives one of the main characters, Fred Derry (played by Dana Andrews), returns to his pre-war job at a local drugstore, working primarily as a soda fountain attendant, also known as a soda jerk. Nearly all drug stores through the 1930s and into the 1960s had lunch counters, where customers sat on stools and enjoyed meals including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They also offered ice cream. In some small towns, it was only the drug store and the grocer where ice cream could be found. The soda fountains, now all but vanished, featured in many films as an easily recognizable social gathering spot. Some had booths, a feature in the film The Sting, where characters availed themselves of the pay telephone, another all but vanished feature of the past.
Soda fountains appeared in drug stores because they were the earliest dispensers of carbonated drinks. Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, and others were all originally sold as medicines and tonics (the latter contained lithium citrate until 1948). Another classic film in which a drug store soda fountain played a significant role was It’s A Wonderful Life, in which a young George Bailey works the fountain as well as delivers prescriptions for the druggist. By the 1950s the drive-in restaurant began shouldering into their business in the suburbs, and automats and lunch counters in larger stores took away much of their urban business. Today, few drug store soda fountains remain.