Drive-thru dairies are awesome. Having grown up on the east side of Whittier, California--not to be confused with the unincorporated census-designated place known officially as East Whittier--I was spoiled by the absolute surfeit of drive-thru dairies near my childhood home. There was the one on Whittier Boulevard in La Habra; the one in the confusing triangle created by Leffingwell, Lambert, and Santa Gertrudes in, yes, East Whittier; and some others that either no longer exist or aren't terribly close to Whittier but which we still frequented.
I don't remember exactly what happened, but I think I was driving my parents home from somewhere and we planned to eat at a restaurant we found out was closed. We were near Vinny's in La Habra, so I figured we could order a pizza on our way home. Well, we were so close to Vinny's that the pizza wouldn't be ready for another forty-five minutes. We ended up ordering, so we had time to kill.
My dad only drinks beer with pizza, Mexican food, and sometimes with backyard-grilled burgers. He rarely barbecues, and when they're by themselves at home (as opposed to when I and/or my siblings and their families are visiting), my parents don't normally order pizza. And they only really eat Mexican food at restaurants. So they don't buy much beer. What we usually have is whatever is left over from the last party they threw.
Anyway, we were fresh out of beer, and my dad mentioned that we should stop somewhere to get some. Just as he said this, we passed right by this drive-thru dairy. An old dairy that none of us knew about? My dad claimed to know about it, but he never brought me here, and he took me everywhere when I was a kid. Anyway, I made a U-turn, and they had some kind of deal on twenty-four packs of Modelo or Dos Equis, so for the first time in my life, I bought my dad beer.
We ended up continuing south on Euclid all the way to Anaheim and reminiscing about our late cousin and his family, who still live near the mall in whose parking lot we turned around.
Our pizza was ready right when we returned to Vinny's, which was forty-eight minutes after we ordered it. When we got home, I put a bottle of beer in the freezer to cool it down quickly while my dad set the table and my mom made a salad.
He enjoyed his beer, and I think that twenty-four pack lasted for almost two years in the refrigerator in my parents' garage.
This drive-thru dairy appeared just when we needed it. read more
