Historic drive-in eateries abound in Ypsilanti
The fun of drive-ins hasn’t left Ypsilanti. In fact, the college town has a enough drive-thru eateries to make other towns drool with envy. Mmmmm…Malteds…. .
Ypsilanti exudes so much history it even comes out through the driver-thru. The Detroit Free Press profiled two historic drive-in eateries in the college town.
Of course, Concentrate’s sister publication Metromode beat them to the punch by about a year.
Bill’s Drive-In: Simple, and satisfying
Excerpt:
Bill’s Drive-In in Ypsilanti doesn’t have menus. Or speakers for ordering. Or its name on the front of the building.
It’s clearly doing OK without the sign. After all, it has been there since 1939, so most folks know it by now — and it’s hard to miss a small, mustard-yellow building with HOT DOGS written atop the roof.
Read the rest of the story here.
Chick Inn Drive-In: A fifties feeling, from food to decor
Excerpt:
Everything about Chick Inn Drive-In screams 1950s.
There’s the border of pink neon lettering that circles the perimeter of the roof, and vintage signs on the fence advertising sandwiches with clever names like the Hammy Sammy. But the most telling detail of all may be the way they wrote the restaurant’s phone number — HU3-3639 — on the revolving sign that towers over the street corner. (Almost miraculously, the number hasn’t changed in more than a half-century. It’s still 483-3639.)
The building is so iconic, the Ypsilanti Heritage Foundation lists it as a 1955 historic structure.
Read the rest of the story here.
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