“The music is played for love
Cruisin’ is made for love
I love it when we’re cruisin’ together”
— Smokey Robinson
“I got a letterman’s sweater
With a letter in front
I got for football and track
I’m proud to wear it now
When I cruise around
The other parts of the town
I got a decal in back”
— “Be True to Your School” The Beach Boys, 1963
“I was cruisin’ in my Sting Ray late one night,
when an XKE pulled up on my right”
— “Dead Man’s Curve,” Jan & Dean, 1963
Just like two of the three aforementioned songs, the Dog ‘N Suds drive-in restaurant came to Wayland in 1963, changing community social life for at least a decade.
Dog ‘N Suds was a classic 1950s and ’60s eatery that featured waitresses coming out to your car with a tray to put on your window so you could eat outdoors in your vehicle. It was an important visual part of of the 1973 movie “American Graffiti.”
The owners of the franchise were members a family headed by Doris and Bob Bell. All of them worked at the restaurant, which opened its doors 52 years ago on South Main Street, across the street fro
m the Wayland VFW, which today would be a horrible violation of the business advice of “location, location, location.”
But in the spring and summer of 1963, Dog ‘N Suds was all the rage. It was credited with bringing down restaurants in the downtown area, eateries such as Spencer’s Restaurant, the Bon Apetit and eventually the Northway Grille just north of town across from Airport Lanes. The Dog ‘N Suds was more than just a restaurant, it was the favorite hangout for Wayland High School students, particularly after football and basketball games.
The restaurant had plenty of seating indoors, which meant that a huge number of teens, males and females alike, often trolled around the place after a Friday night ballgame and would do a lot of rubbernecking from cars to try to see who was inside the Dog ‘N Suds tonight. Those who already had a girlfriend or boyfriend and older folks usually took their food in the cars from waitresses who came outside.
Dog ‘N Suds was the place to go for teen social interaction. It was where you met your friends and it was a preview of later days of going to the bar to seek companionship of the opposite sex.
But the Bell family, despite the tremendous popularity of the joint, noticed that teen-agers generally did not have a lot of spending cash. Some would stop in and buy nothing or something small because of their meager finances. So the Bells instituted a policy that patrons had to spend at least 50 cents in order to be able to hang out inside.
Then came a policy in 1965 that launched my sordid career in protesting. In response to so many customers breaking plastic spoons they ordered with their coffee, the Bells put up a written notice that anyone who broke a plastic spoon would have to pay 10 cents for his or her crime.
I was outraged that Dog ‘N Suds would use plastic spoons over again and on
e night while cruisin’ with Gordon Hudson, Terry Parks and Tom Hooker, I purchased a box of plastic spoons at a grocery and brought them into the restaurant. After buying a cup of coffee, I proceeded immediately to break one of the plastic spoons I had purchased. The waitress dutifully came to our table and announced, “That’ll be 10 cents.”
I proudly replied that the spoon she had given me was still intact, and that I had broken a spoon I had purchased at a grocery store. Being the daughter of the owner, she was quite upset and summoned her father, proprietor Bob Bell, to the table. He promptly ordered me and my three friends to leave the premesis.
We did, but on the way out, being the jerk I was and still am, I broke another of my own spoons and placed the remains in a waste basket. This enraged Mr. Bell.
Mr. Bell and me and my three friends later were invited to have a sit-down talk, during which he explained to us that the plastic spoons were properly sterilized after being used, so there wasn’t a health hazard. He also told us of his vision of getting away from being a teen hangout and instead becoming a family restaurant.
Indeed, several years later, the Bells remodeled the building to make it more of a sit-down family restaurant, complete with indoor waterfalls and decorations, attempting to lure an older and more well-heeled clientele.
Yet it actually was still a place where you could buy that Charco-Burger Basket with burger, fries and cole slaw. It was still a place where you could get a hot dog and root beer, just like in its earliest days. They weren’t fooling anyone.
So eventually Bell’s Family Restaurant lost a lot of business because of its emphasis and its location. The Bell family finally sold the eatery and afterward it began its descent, becoming Diana’s Family Restaurant and Rudy’s Family Restaurant, with fewer and fewer customers and eventually, dissolution.
All that remains today at the site are seven pillars next to what once was a bustling restaurant that was the place to go to meet your friends and hustle the opposite sex.
But it still holds many memories for Baby Boomers like me because it’s where I first heard the Beatles in February 1964, courtesy of Stephanie Wisniewski, mother of City Councilwoman Tracy Bivins, where I chatted often with local basketball legend Ron Kidney and where I met up with Bob Lindgren and listened to Jan & Dean’s “Surf City” before we hitchhiked to Gun Lake.
I doubt that McDonald’s, Burger King, Big Boy or Taco Bell can top that.
PHOTOS: The Dog ‘N Suds logo.
These seven pillars are all that are left of the old Dog ‘N Suds restaurant in Wayland.
Dog ‘Suds: A view from the kind of service that became famous.
