In Praise of The Snack Bar - Part I: Old Man River Barbeque

 

A big part of the experience of going to see exploitation flicks at the drive in was hitting the snack bar to nosh on the delightful delicacies offered for sale within.

Popcorn, soda, candies, hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza. . .

Coffee, ice cream, French fries, onion rings were all menu mainstays.

The battle for patrons was not only fought with what was shown on the screens, but also what goodies were available in a snack bar.

To keep ahead of the Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorns and Jonses, drive in theater owners needed to think outside of the box by introducing new and exciting items to their snack bars.

Also, introducing contests for free snack bar items helped sell tickets.

One perennial snack bar favorite was Old Man River Barbeque.

Old Man River Barbeque was founded by the Webb family in nineteen-eighteen.  In particular, the brothers, Bob and Ed, who took an old family recipe . . . Stolen from another family, and working out of a tin shed, they slowly grew in size and became one of the leading purveyors of barbeque product in theater snack bars for decades to come.

Looking back in time, as we do, their first ad campaign was slightly ill-conceived.

The ad featured a cute pig spokesman, dubbed "Pip the Pig", with some would say clever, some would say offensive, play on the word savory.  This sales pitch lasted for a few years before being dropped for a less controversial approach.