Roy Allen, who refurbished old hotels, met a pharmacists who had perfected a recipe for making root beer.
Allen bought the recipe and on June 20, 1919, opened a root beer stand in Lodi, California, offering frosty mugs of root beer for a nickel.
Shortly thereafter, he opened more stands in Stockton and Sacramento, one of which may have been a drive in.
In 1920, Frank Wright, an employee at the Stockton stand, became Allen’s partner they combine their initial and called the company A & W Root Beer.
Additional A & W stands were opened throughout California, Utah an Texas.
Allen eventually bought out Wright trademark the A & W became one of the first fast food franchise chains in the country.
Franchisees paid a small licensing fee, displayed the A & W logo, and bought root beer syrup from Allen.
Other than these connections, little commonality existed among franchisees - no common architecture, no common menu, and no common procedures or national advertising.
Some A & W Root Beer franchisees began selling food, including hamburgers and hot dogs, along with root beer. Some early A & W Root Beer stands were drive ins, featuring tray-boys ad tray –girls, later renamed carhops, who bought orders to customers in their car outside.
The depression affected franchises differently. Some went out of business but others opened more new stands. In 1933, A & W had 170 outlets; by 1942, it had stands nationwide.
The war years between 1941 and 1945, it had 260 stands nationwide. The war between 1941 and 1945, on the other hand, were very difficult time for A & W.
There were labor shortages and sugar shortages, and by the tine war ended many franchises had closed. After the war, however A & W rapidly expanded.
During the 1950s, Roy Allen sold the business to a Nebraskan, Gene Hurtz, who formed the A & W Root Beer Company.
Within ten years, the number of A & W outlets had increases to more than 2,000.
In 1956, an A & W Root Beer outlet opened in Canada followed by Guam and the Philippines.
Early History of Root Beer A & W
