EDWARD'S DRIVE-IN

DRIVE-IN RESTAURANTS

The first drive-in restaurant was Kirby's Pig Stand that opened in Dallas, Texas back in 1921.  At Kirby's, you were waited on by young men dressed in white shirts, black bow ties and wearing a white cap.  They were known as "Car Hops".  This term came from the waiters running to the cars as they pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and jumping up on the running board of the car to take the order.  As this type of restaurant evolved, some carhops wore colorful uniforms and may have made their way to your car on roller skates   It was a casual way to eat.  Just pull up to a curb or parking spot and have a waiter/waitress come to your car and take your order and then they would return to your car with a tray which would fit over your door's window with your food. 

 I had to return to the office to have my laptop set up with a "hot spot".  Gary went with me and we thought we pick up some lunch when I was finished.  We passed "Popeye's Chicken" and decided to try it.  The last time we had "Popeye's" was at our son's house in Maryland.  Since then a couple of franchisees have popped up on the south side of Indianapolis.  They were exceedingly slow in taking orders and while waiting in line people were coming back up saying they were given the wrong order or there was something wrong with the order, so we decided to try somewhere else.

Last Saturday, we had planned to go to Edward's Drive-In but due to them having a charity car show and a huge crowd, we decided to try it another day.  I guess this was that day.  We ate inside.  I'm not sure it there still had drive-in service or not, although their FaceBook page said they have waiter service.  Inside you order at a counter and they call your number when the food is ready. 

 

We had eaten at Edward's many years ago and I didn't remember the inside being so spacious.  Maybe they have expanded.  The seating capacity was pretty large.  It was very nicely decorated with windows separating the booths that had etched glass with pictures of classic cars.  The restaurant's theme seems to be classic cars and they have several car shows each year.  They also had a jukebox which was playing "oldies" while we were there.

I ordered the Bar-B-Q sandwich with onion rings and Gary got the breaded tenderloin with fries.  You could also choose fried mushrooms as your accompaniment.  The onion rings were big and crisp.  It almost as hard to get really good onion rings as it is a good tenderloin, but Edwards had both.  We both got fountain drinks but I wished I had ordered root beer, as it still comes in frosted mugs  like 40 years ago.

My sandwich was good on a generous sized bun unlike some place where I wish I had another sandwich to fill me up.  Gary said his tenderloin was tasty, although his bun fell apart … maybe from the goodies that he added like tomato, mayo, etc.

This will definitely be a lunch place we'll hit in the future, even though it is a little drive from the house.

EDWARDS DRIVE-IN

2126 South Sherman Drive

Indianapolis, IN

Visited on Friday 11/1/13