In Midtown on the east side of Main Street across were the A&W Drive-in and the Hotrod Diner. The diner was built by the Smith family in the 30s shortly after the theater was completed. The A&W was the last building built in Oasis Palms. It was built in the 1950s on a postage stamp-sized lot with limited access off Oasis Road.
To get to town from the East automobile traffic came in on Oasis Road. When leaving town Oasis Road took visitors out of town under the railroad bridge, out past the Vulcan Gold Mine site, and then finally reconnected with Route 66 in Danby California. This was the last remaining buildable spot when an entrepreneur from Northern California approached the Smiths asking to build an A&W franchise in Oasis Palms.
To reduce competition for their family-owned diner, the Smith’s issued building permits for an outdoor dining establishment. As an outdoor-only establishment the A&W was only open in the summer after dark as it was too hot to sit on the stools mid-day and in the winter it was only open for a few hours in the middle of the day while the sun was shining as it was too cold to operate after dark. Despite the setbacks, the A&W was popular with both the locals and visitors to town.
The Hotrod Diner was a classic diner converted from a scrapped railroad diner car purchased from the Santa Fe Railroad. Owned by Lefty and Molly Smith, it was originally named Molly’s but was rebranded in the 50s to take advantage of the popularity of the newly emerging California car culture.
The Horod diner was open 24 hours a day 7 days a week and sat at the corner of Main Street and Barco Road. Being caddy-corner to Lefty’s garage and featuring a full bar and liquor license, it was the most likely spot to find Lefty at any given time.
Leave a Reply