Parkette Drive-In customers pour in to buy ‘a piece of nostalgia’ from historic restaurant

Ellen Joseph and her husband had their first date at Parkette Drive In, and so did her parents.

“I’ve been coming here all my life,” she said.

So she was thrilled to take home a rotating Pepsi sign and one of the historic Lexington restaurant’s menu boards, which she said her husband jokingly suggested that they install between their recliners.

The couple were among hundreds of people who came to a sale Saturday hoping to snag a piece of memorabilia associated with the restaurant, which opened in 1952 and closed abruptly June 28.

People arrived hours ahead of time to get a spot in line, swapping memories while they waited, then were admitted into the dining room a handful at a time beginning at 10 a.m. By then, the parking lot was clogged with vehicles and the line of waiting shoppers snaked from the door at the back of the restaurant almost to New Circle Road.

Before hopping in line to get inside, customers said they paid $20 each for t-shirts, menus and napkin holders.

“Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” said Brad Berryman, who said he always got the chicken when he ate at Parkette, but on Saturday he got two t-shirts and several menus.

Bryan Tipton, the son-in-law of Parley Smiley, widow of Parkette founder Joe Smiley, estimated that they had about 1,000 menus and more than 1,000 t-shirts to sell.

“He said there’d be something for everybody,” said Shirley Cummins, who drove in from Mount Vernon with her husband, Bill, and spent the night in a hotel so they could arrive at the sale early.

She said their first visit to Parkette was in about 1971 or ‘72.

Cummins left Saturday with a metal table and chairs and a coveted “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” picture autographed by Guy Fieri, who visited Parkette in 2010. She also bought some menus, napkin holders and t-shirts, and she thought about getting a booth, but said “I have to stop somewhere.”

“It’s a piece of nostalgia,” she said. “Hate to see it get gone.”

Armed with a cordless drill, Clint Sullivan, a friend of Bryan and Melissa Tipton, who is a daughter of Joe Smiley, was busy stripping metal signs and other decor from the walls as customers pointed out what they wanted. Most of the signs were priced in the neighborhood of $20 to $50. A long sign that said “Poor Boy Smiley Boy Big Lex” was priced at $500.

At one point, Sullivan paused with his cell phone in hand and turned to Bryan Tipton: “$100 on a trash can out front?”

Tipton agreed.

“Yeah,” Sullivan told the caller.. “A hundred bucks.”

One man who said he was working on a hot rod-themed campground wanted to know if he could buy a piece of the awning.

“We’re going to be done here in no time,” Tipton said about an hour into the sale of the fixtures inside the restaurant, which was scheduled to last until 3 p.m..

Most of the time, the sellers didn’t appear to be in a mood to bargain.

“This isn’t a thrift store sale,” he announced to a new batch of patrons who had just entered the dining room. “This is what’s left of Parkette. Tell me what you want. Let’s get it and go.”

The restaurant’s classic jukebox, along with the bar top, six bar stools, a booth, several light fixtures and a wall sign featuring the Parkette logo went to a man who didn’t want to give his name.

“My man cave just got a whole lot better,” he said.

Tipton said he expects that the building will be torn down to make way for “a long-term, good viable business here.”

He said the property, which is next door to a Lexus dealership, is not for sale, and whatever comes next will be operated through a property lease.

“I am 90 percent sure that the sign is going to get saved,” he said of the iconic neon sign that towers over New Circle Road.

Kathy Smiley Parker, a daughter of Joe and Parley Smiley, said her dad lived in the office at the restaurant while it was being built, which was before New Circle Road, then known as the Belt Line, was even finished.

After Joe Smiley’s first wife died, she said he met her mother at the restaurant.

“I was here since I was two weeks old,” she said Saturday. “They fixed us a bed in a chicken pan while they worked.”

She said Saturday was a “very sad” day.

Carmen Mason, who picked up some wall decor, a menu and some bumper stickers, said she remembers eating at the restaurant’s Georgetown Road location years ago, and she still remembers the strawberry pie.

“I’m 60 years old. Parkette’s been a part of my life since I was a kid,” she said. “I hate to see it go, but in these times, I understand.”