Before Quality Towing, the Post Road East property next to Saugatuck Congregational Church was a Tydol gas station.
What’s more remarkable about this January 1956 photo, though, is the Dairy Queen.
Westporters from the 1960s through ’80s remember the DQ further east. Today it’s Little Barn restaurant. (Think of the architecture — makes sense, right?)
This earlier Dairy Queen sat on the site of what later became the Crest. (It’s now the site of recently closed Salsa Fresca, soon to be Just Salad.)
The Crest was Westport’s 1st drive-in — as beloved by teenagers in the early ’60s as the Big Top in later years.
Today’s equivalent is — I have no clue.
A bit east of the Crest — beyond the right side of this photo — was the original Viva Zapata.
But check out the police car parked in front of the DQ.
Can’t see it? Here’s a better image:
(Photo courtesy of Christopher Maroc, via Facebook)
If you don’t think seeing that gumball light in your rearview mirror would worry you, think again.
Getting pulled over as a teenager in the 1950s probably meant being driven home in the back seat to your parents.
That may have been the scariest punishment of all.
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The Crest was the # 1 spot! Hot dog with the works, please.
For what it’s worth, the car is a 1955 Plymouth
There was an article recently noting that Kamala Harris had worked at McDonald’s way back in the day and that, in doing so, she was part of the group of 1 in 8 Americans who at some point worked at McD’s.
We did not have a McDonald’s in Westport during our high school days but I think roughly half of our starting lineup on the soccer team worked at comparable places such as Carrols, Dairy Queen, and World of Wieners—and I had other friends who worked at those outlets. I wonder what the percentage of Westport students is today earning money in that manner.
Fred, how could you forget Chubby Lane’s?
As for Westport kids working in places like that today: far lower. Too many competing demands and pressures on their time. And the ones that do work usually manage to find higher-paying jobs.
Worked as a kid with Ricky Ball and Don Manning at the Crest.
Those were the days when you had hopped up bikes and cars that would showcase at night in parking lot.
Greasers, Sighs and Jocks all frequented this popular spot.
In the late 60’s/early 70’s, I worked at Westport Center Chevron. My favorite part of the job was being sent across the street to Crest by the owners or mechanics to pick up lunch or breakfast. Jack Klugman (Odd Couple) had his old station wagon serviced at Chevron. It was a cluttered mess inside. Lol
Re Friday Flashback #414: The car, a 1960 white Rambler station wagon, was seen in Dan Woog’s Friday Flashback #278 in a photo of Kleins by Steve Baldwin! I was a longtime customer of Westport Center Chevron. In 1967 when I was finishing up my degree at Columbia, we needed a cheap car to get us out of the city. Don Horberg and Bob Walsh, the owners of the gas station had that car on their lot that they said had belonged to Jack Klugman, the actor. He’d used it as a station car and had tasked Don and Bob to sell it for him: so I bought it for $25 ! After a huge cleanup, including finding a dried up partially eaten hot dog and bun under the back seat along with other assorted trash, it proved to be a faithful junker for the next 4 to 5 years. It saw many more miles (some 35,000) here in the east and out to the midwest and generated many funny stories until I finally sold it onward in 1971. Thanks for the memory!
Peter Kelley, Centerport, NY
The 1955 police car? We referred to them as “Cherry Tops”.
It seems kinda fitting outside of Dairy Queen!
(“I’ll have a sundae with a cherry on top!”)
’55 Plymouth? Thought it might be a ’55 Ford Fairlane, complete with automatic transmission, a/c, power steering and power brakes.
Let’s not forget that Crest location was Sam Goodies for a long time before they moved to Compo Square where Patriot Bank was and now a walk-in clinic/doc in a box.
For a time that Tydol station was known as Westport Flying A.
In 1959, the first burglary I investigated was at that Tydol Station. I also met the owner, Byron Latimer, who later became a Special Police Officer and a Shellfish Officer for the Police Department.
The Crest could have been in the movie “Grease.”