SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
I could have been a Dick’s Drive-In employee
Mar 6, 2017, 2:49 PM
Dick's Drive-In was established in Seattle in 1954. (Dick's Drive-In, Facebook)
(Dick's Drive-In, Facebook)
When the Lord blesses all of you with kids, I hope they are more sensible than I was as a kid – a kid who grew up in Ballard and spent a lot of time at Dick’s Drive-In. I’m glad to say that the burger joint has only grown since my teenage years.
Related: Vote on the next Dick’s Drive-In location
Dick’s is currently taking online votes so locals can weigh in on where they would like the next location to be – the Eastside or south of Seattle. Now bear in mind, that a place like Dick’s can be more than a simple stop-and-go burger shop. For my friends and I, it was tradition. Today, it’s nostalgia that I can still drive up to.
I loved the place so much, I almost went to work at Dick’s as a teenager. But fate had other plans.
At least three days a week, at Ballard High School, we would pile into the back of Tim Salo’s bright orange Datsun pick-up truck and go flying up 15th to Holman Road to the Dick’s Drive-In. I would always get the same thing. I’m better now, but at the time I couldn’t eat hamburgers with ketchup and mustard on them. I always considered those the Devil’s condiments. And they didn’t do special orders. So the only thing I could get was French fries and a hot fudge sundae. Like I said, I hope your kids are more sensible.
So I would take my fries and sundae, and pile back into the truck with my buddies, and we would ride around Ballard, eating Dick’s food. It was our tradition.
I loved it so much, I applied and got offered a job at the Dick’s on Holman Road; the same one I spent so much time at as a customer. I admit, I was partially enticed by the fact employees could drink as much fountain beverages as they liked. Another reason could have been the college plans that Dick’s is so well-known for.
But I turned them down.
At the same time I was offered a job at a print shop. And that’s where I went, and took a different path. I could have been a Dick’s employee, but instead, I ended up as a radio personality. Leave the puns alone, please.
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