Latest news with #WallDrug
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Travelers gateway to the Black Hills: Wall, SD
Wall, S.D. (KELO) — Any trip this summer to the Black Hills needs to have Wall, South Dakota, on a places to see list. Measles inching closer to South Dakota This town sees thousands of visitors each day. For many, summer kicks off after Memorial Day Weekend. However, for Wall, guests start arriving as early as late April. 'Kind of preparing people to stop here in Wall, but once they get here we definitely have the Badlands and that's well known. We get a lot of travelers that will come through the Badlands, see the Badlands, then come through Wall and stay in Wall and then kind of finish through the Badlands to the Black Hills, ' Wall Chamber Executive Director Ali Webster said. Mary Williams, the current and first female Mayor for Wall, has seen an evolution over the years as more people continue to show up. 'Welcome to Wall is what we say to the new faces that come and yes Wall Drug since 1931 has made this community an international destination because of their billboards they have world wide,' Williams said. Wall Drug struggled at the beginning. However, after putting up their famous signs, the business began to grow by first handing out free water to people going through the Badlands. Now that growth is seen a few generations later. 'Ted went and hired a high school boy and lettered the sign, went out and put it up and before he got back to the drug store, the first customers had already stopped. They were giving out free glasses of ice water, they were selling ice cream cones, Coca-Colas, snacks and knickknacks and instantly they weren't going broke anymore,' Wall Drug Chairman Rick Hustead said. Over the years, Rick's father Bill Hustead constructed the Wall Drug seen today and increased its size from roughly 4,000 square feet to now 76,000 square feet. 'And you'll notice in our community we have paved streets throughout town and that's important for us to give our visitors just a very inviting look when they drive into our community,' Williams said. So far, Williams has counted people from 37 different states that have already visited this season, with around a dozen different countries represented as well. 'Constantly growing, constantly shifting, to how we meet the needs of the people who are coming here. Do we need to build new hotels, do we need to renovate hotels that are already existing? Just trying to keep it a pleasurable experience for all of our visitors,' Webster said. In addition to seasonal staff, several people who grew up in the area have returned to take over shops and businesses from previous generations. 'And they're taking over businesses in the agricultural area, as well as the tourism area. So yes, Wall Drug is in their fourth generation, and we've got other main street businesses in that same manner,' Williams said. Wall Drug itself employs close to 200 staff to help it navigate its busy season 'We believe we're the best roadside attraction in America and we want to keep that title. We want our customers to have a great experience, enjoy Wall Drug and keep them coming back generation after generation,' Hustead said. Wall averages around 10,000 to 15,000 visitors each day, who stop by to eat, shop or just take in all that Wall and Wall Drug have to offer on their travels. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Eater
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Eater
Central Washington's Most Legendary Burger Joint Keeps Yakima Fed After 77 Years
Walking into Miner's Drive-In Restaurant at the sweet, confusing age of 12 years old, you are smacked by all the noise. There are fryers blitzing breaded chicken, big pools of oil bubbling parades of fries. Orders called out and passed along between staff who, in uniforms of red and black, run food out the drive-thru window and through dining rooms stuffed with teenagers talking, laughing, and eating like this is the last time they'll ever taste a hamburger. Strawberry milkshakes are slurped. Stained foil is balled up by greasy fingers and thrown into trash cans. The interior is all shiny brown wood and stained glass lampshades, little pictures embossed on those lampshades of tomatoes and grapes on the vine cut into portraiture. The logo, on plastic cups and encircled by neon on the wall, is soft orange with big blocky text — think Wall Drug, think Old West. The food is food you already know, the eternal food of America. The titanic Big Miner Burgers and chili cheese fries are meaty, oozing, and weighty. Miner's, in the arid Central Washington city of Yakima, where I grew up, is maybe the most historic burger joint east of the Cascades. It's shorthand for fast-food splendor in the shrub steppe ecology of Central and Eastern Washington. I've eaten at Miner's more times than I can count. So has everyone else from rural Washington. It is to Yakima what the cheeseburger chain Dick's is to the Seattle area, a restaurant that's been around so long that it has become retro. You could call it nostalgic except that implies it's out-of-date, when in fact it is very much an anchor of present-day Yakima. Kids today eat there just like I did and their kids probably will too. Miner's holds fast to what works: indulgent burgers, no-frills aesthetics, and unwavering commitment to keeping things the same. The restaurant — which is actually a drive-thru, not a drive-in — was opened on April 9, 1948 by Ed and Irene Miner with the help of their 16-year-old son, Lee. Miner's is on First Street and the edge of Yakima's sprawling Valley Mall. If you haven't been to Yakima, and you probably haven't, the city has just under 100,000 residents. There's a big sign declaring it 'the Palm Springs of Washington' just north on Highway 97 that was put up by a guy named Gary in 1987 to get people from Seattle to visit. When he was asked by a reporter in 2013 what Palm Springs has in common with Yakima, he said, 'We have a lot of sunshine over here.' (The reporter also spoke with some Seattleites about this one-man tourism campaign, and one said, 'I've been to Palm Springs, it looks nothing like Yakima.') Mostly the city is known for its abundance of hops and fruit. Miner's, too, is a Yakima institution, visible on the main drag in bright yellow and red. According to manager David Miner, grandson of Ed and Irene, the business has barely changed since the early days. This quintessential Americana burger joint is a relic, a holdover icon of the most upper-left state, the way its beer and apples are. Miner's was the first drive-thru restaurant in Yakima. The response to the advent of drive-thru fast food hitting the city was immediate and euphoric. Cars have slammed the business ever since. Local lore goes that the McDonald brothers visited the drive-thru in its infancy and took inspiration for their operations, though McDonald's did open eight years before Miner's, in 1940. (It's probably not true, but, like Mulder, Washingtonians want to believe.) These days, there are seven huge Pepsi-branded menus in the drive-thru alone; staff come take orders while cars rack up. In the mid-1950s, Ed Miner noticed a Richland high school team circling, looking for a place to eat. When they pulled in, Grandpa Miner told them the coach would eat for free. Word got around, and in short order teams planned their games around trips to Miner's. Coaches still eat free at Miner's to this day. The burger joint now sponsors plenty of teams and sporting events. Thanks to its super late operating hours — 2 a.m. most nights and 3:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays — heading there after football games is a time-tested legacy for teens, too. The drive-thru, and a small roped-off patch of grass and trees known as 'Miner's Park,' are what remain from Miner's opening days. It wasn't until 1997 that the restaurant added its first dining room. In 2000 it added a second, the same year a salad bar station joined the mix. The burgers are no longer 25 cents like they were when Miner's opened. But this remains the kind of restaurant where families grow up and where employees stay in place for decades. Head manager Al Louis, for instance, has worked at Miner's for 30 years since he was a 17-year-old dishwasher. And Miner says he often eats the cost of rising expenses to avoid unsettling people: 'We don't want to scare customers away. People come here expecting things to stay the same.' Things did change, unavoidably and everywhere, at the onset of the COVID era. Supply chain issues made it difficult to source everything from beef to foil hamburger bags. The drive-thru line was beyond crowded; there were rarely fewer than 20 to 30 cars sprawling into the street. Despite those delays and hardships, the well-oiled machine that is Miner's kept on chugging. Today, Miner's looks and feels just like it did when I was a 12-year-old wing signing my papers as 'Kobe 'The Storm' Bryant.' The chili cheese fries are as titanic as ever. There's still magic in blasting through a heap of heartburn-inducing fries and teriyaki burgers in the car before hitting the mall. It's like the same kids are decamping the same buses after the same Ellensburg versus Union Gap games. The only thing that seems like it's changed is me; I eat like a rabbit when I'm not eating for work, and I no longer have the metabolism required to eat at Miner's. A new crop of tweens has taken over where I left off. The cosmic ballet goes on. Miner isn't too concerned about the future of his restaurant, nor the food industry at large. His grandparents are in their 90s now, but he'll only be 35 in June. He can run the restaurant for a long time without changing anything. Nothing needs to change. 'We're busier than ever,' Miner says. 'So why change something that's not broke?' Miner's Drive-In Restaurant (2415 South 1st Street, Yakima) is open every day from 8:30 a.m. to 2 a.m., and until 3:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Sign up for our newsletter.
Eater
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Eater
Eastern Washington's Most Legendary Burger Joint Keeps Yakima Fed After 77 Years
Walking into Miner's Drive-In Restaurant at the sweet, confusing age of 12 years old, you are smacked by all the noise. There are fryers blitzing breaded chicken, big pools of oil bubbling parades of fries. Orders called out and passed along between staff who, in uniforms of red and black, run food out the drive-thru window and through dining rooms stuffed with teenagers talking, laughing, and eating like this is the last time they'll ever taste a hamburger. Strawberry milkshakes are slurped. Stained foil is balled up by greasy fingers and thrown into trash cans. The interior is all shiny brown wood and stained glass lampshades, little pictures embossed on those lampshades of tomatoes and grapes on the vine cut into portraiture. The logo, on plastic cups and encircled by neon on the wall, is soft orange with big blocky text — think Wall Drug, think Old West. The food is food you already know, the eternal food of America. The titanic Big Miner Burgers and chili cheese fries are meaty, oozing, and weighty. Miner's, in the arid Central Washington city of Yakima, where I grew up, is maybe the most historic burger joint east of the Cascades. It's shorthand for fast-food splendor in the shrub steppe ecology of Central and Eastern Washington. I've eaten at Miner's more times than I can count. So has everyone else from rural Washington. It is to Yakima what the cheeseburger chain Dick's is to the Seattle area, a restaurant that's been around so long that it has become retro. You could call it nostalgic except that implies it's out-of-date, when in fact it is very much an anchor of present-day Yakima. Kids today eat there just like I did and their kids probably will too. Miner's holds fast to what works: indulgent burgers, no-frills aesthetics, and unwavering commitment to keeping things the same. The restaurant — which is actually a drive-thru, not a drive-in — was opened on April 9, 1948 by Ed and Irene Miner with the help of their 16-year-old son, Lee. Miner's is on First Street and the edge of Yakima's sprawling Valley Mall. If you haven't been to Yakima, and you probably haven't, the city has just under 100,000 residents. There's a big sign declaring it 'the Palm Springs of Washington' just north on Highway 97 that was put up by a guy named Gary in 1987 to get people from Seattle to visit. When he was asked by a reporter in 2013 what Palm Springs has in common with Yakima, he said, 'We have a lot of sunshine over here.' (The reporter also spoke with some Seattleites about this one-man tourism campaign, and one said, 'I've been to Palm Springs, it looks nothing like Yakima.') Mostly the city is known for its abundance of hops and fruit. Miner's, too, is a Yakima institution, visible on the main drag in bright yellow and red. According to manager David Miner, grandson of Ed and Irene, the business has barely changed since the early days. This quintessential Americana burger joint is a relic, a holdover icon of the most upper-left state, the way its beer and apples are. Miner's was the first drive-thru restaurant in Yakima. The response to the advent of drive-thru fast food hitting the city was immediate and euphoric. Cars have slammed the business ever since. Local lore goes that the McDonald brothers visited the drive-thru in its infancy and took inspiration for their operations, though McDonald's did open eight years before Miner's, in 1940. (It's probably not true, but, like Mulder, Washingtonians want to believe.) These days, there are seven huge Pepsi-branded menus in the drive-thru alone; staff come take orders while cars rack up. In the mid-1950s, Ed Miner noticed a Richland high school team circling, looking for a place to eat. When they pulled in, Grandpa Miner told them the coach would eat for free. Word got around, and in short order teams planned their games around trips to Miner's. Coaches still eat free at Miner's to this day. The burger joint now sponsors plenty of teams and sporting events. Thanks to its super late operating hours — 2 a.m. most nights and 3:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays — heading there after football games is a time-tested legacy for teens, too. The drive-thru, and a small roped-off patch of grass and trees known as 'Miner's Park,' are what remain from Miner's opening days. It wasn't until 1997 that the restaurant added its first dining room. In 2000 it added a second, the same year a salad bar station joined the mix. The burgers are no longer 25 cents like they were when Miner's opened. But this remains the kind of restaurant where families grow up and where employees stay in place for decades. Head manager Al Louis, for instance, has worked at Miner's for 30 years since he was a 17-year-old dishwasher. And Miner says he often eats the cost of rising expenses to avoid unsettling people: 'We don't want to scare customers away. People come here expecting things to stay the same.' Things did change, unavoidably and everywhere, at the onset of the COVID era. Supply chain issues made it difficult to source everything from beef to foil hamburger bags. The drive-thru line was beyond crowded; there were rarely fewer than 20 to 30 cars sprawling into the street. Despite those delays and hardships, the well-oiled machine that is Miner's kept on chugging. Today, Miner's looks and feels just like it did when I was a 12-year-old wing signing my papers as 'Kobe 'The Storm' Bryant.' The chili cheese fries are as titanic as ever. There's still magic in blasting through a heap of heartburn-inducing fries and teriyaki burgers in the car before hitting the mall. It's like the same kids are decamping the same buses after the same Ellensburg versus Union Gap games. The only thing that seems like it's changed is me; I eat like a rabbit when I'm not eating for work, and I no longer have the metabolism required to eat at Miner's. A new crop of tweens has taken over where I left off. The cosmic ballet goes on. Miner isn't too concerned about the future of his restaurant, nor the food industry at large. His grandparents are in their 90s now, but he'll only be 35 in June. He can run the restaurant for a long time without changing anything. Nothing needs to change. 'We're busier than ever,' Miner says. 'So why change something that's not broke?' Miner's Drive-In Restaurant (2415 South 1st Street, Yakima) is open every day from 8:30 a.m. to 2 a.m., and until 3:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Sign up for our newsletter.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bemidji's iconic Gifts O' the Wild closes after death of 90-year-old owner
Feb. 8—NARY — If you haven't stopped at the iconic Gifts O' the Wild shop along U.S. Highway 71 south of Bemidji, you might have missed your chance. The business closed in November after its owner, Floyd Tweten, died at the age of 90. Tweten operated the store for 61 years, offering a variety of crafts, toys, jelly, wild rice and Native American items. Passersby could not miss the A-frame business with more than a dozen promotional wooden signs pointing the way. "It's the end of an era," said Ellen Rockensock, a longtime employee at Gifts O' the Wild. "It was the old-style Wall Drug atmosphere, I used to hear that from the customers a lot. They had come there 30 years ago as a kid and they'd bring their kids and grandkids. It was a tradition." Gail Bauman, who worked at the store for 38 years until it closed, echoed those sentiments. "I think it was pretty unique," Bauman said. "I think it's because it was pretty old-fashioned. Maybe it was nostalgia. Floyd would order the same things every year, stuff that you just don't find in the stores anymore. He always kept it really, really packed, so when people walked in it was like the 'wow' factor." Even the cash register had some nostalgia. "The old register we had was from 1890, and when that one went to heck we had one from like 1920," Bauman said. "They didn't work. We could open them and put the money in, but that's all that they would do." The future of the business is unclear. Tweten never married and had no siblings or other close relatives. Until his estate is settled, his 80-acre property, home and business are in limbo. Terry Tollefson, a part-time employee who also was Tweten's caregiver in his final years, said a liquidation sale could be planned for later this year, and it's also possible that a buyer could be found for the business. The property was home to the family of Tweten's mother, Olga Oase Tweten. Floyd was born on the Oase farm in 1934. His father, Nels, worked for the highway department, and the family lived in Ponemah and Kelliher while Floyd was growing up. He graduated from Kelliher High School and Bemidji State University and also attended the University of Minnesota. After Nels died in 1960, Floyd and his mother moved back to the Oase farm and soon opened Gifts O' the Wild, selling jellies and jams that Olga made. The first store opened in a small building that was moved onto the property. Then Floyd built the first part of the A-frame and expanded the business. He added on two more times, once to the east and once to the south, creating space to expand his offerings. "It was kind of a unique business because he built it so big," said Wayne Hoff, one of Floyd's second cousins. "There was a time when he was considering buying the Treasure City business in Royalton. He was thinking about buying that, and then instead he decided to build the one up here as big as Treasure City." While the building and its contents continued to expand, Tweten never added plumbing to the space. "The only thing that was sad is he never put a bathroom in," Bauman said with a slight chuckle. "We would tell people they could go out to the outhouse, but we'd get a few people who would say, 'No, I think I'll wait until the next gas station.' Floyd was very, very old-fashioned and very, very set in the '60s. He didn't grow with the times as far as modernizing. That was the charm of the place." Bauman said a salesman from Minnetonka Moccasins once told Tweten that his shop sold more of the product than any other outlet. "Maybe he just told us that," she said, "but we did sell a lot of moccasins." In the mid-to-late-1960s, Gifts O' the Wild and the neighboring Tangborn Rock Shop became tourist destinations, with friendly competition between them. "They would have charter buses coming in there," said Hoff, whose grandfather Vanner Tangborn started the rock shop in 1952 across Highway 71 from Tweten's shop. "It was all friendly. People just flocked there because they were interested in rocks. And Floyd's store kind of became an icon. The charter buses would stop at both places." Floyd Tweten's business might never reopen, but he and the one-of-a-kind gift shop will long be remembered. "It was Floyd's legacy," Bauman said. "It's important that people remember him and what he did."
