The Parkmoor

William Louis "Louie" McGinley was born on November 25, 1898 in Norman, Oklahoma. When he was six, his family moved to the resort town of Mineral Wells, Texas. Hotels became the family business, and young Louie quickly took to the world of hospitality.

At the onset of World War I, McGinley moved with his family to Wichita Falls, Texas. Rather than finish high school, he studied typing, shorthand and bookkeeping at a commercial college in Tyler, Texas, where he met Ellen Adelle Robertson. The two were married a short time thereafter and moved to Ranger, Texas, where McGinley worked selling cars for Goad Motor Company.

McGinley had an older brother Mack, who was creative and highly visual. After returning from military service in World War I, Mack joined his brother selling cars at Goad.
 

"Louie" McGinley "Mack" McGinley

While at Goad, Mack came up with the idea of an "auto soda server" – a tray that could attach to the side of an automobile to serve beverages. In a letter to his parents, dated March 31, 1923, Mack described his invention, complete with a sketch.
 

Mack McGinley's March 31, 1923 letter to his parents
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Together, the McGinley brothers built a prototype of Mack's service tray, applied for a patent and began manufacturing and delivering "TrayCo Service Trays" to drugstores, confection shops and refreshment stands. Eventually, Mack would sell his shares of the Tray Service Company to his brother, Louie.
 

William L. McGinley TraCo prototype and business card

The viability of TraCo trays was dependent on the viability of the fledgling curb-service business. So McGinley set out traveling the country in his Model T Ford, determined to sell the concept of drive-in restaurants.

McGinley's cross-country trek led him to St. Louis, where drive-in restaurants and curb-service were not yet popular. He realized that St. Louis restaurants were resistant to curb-service because they didn't understand it. So to help them realize the boon it would be, he opened his own curb-service restaurant.

McGinley called his drive-in restaurant The Parkmoor. It opened on Clayton Road at Big Bend on July 15, 1931, and Clayton police had to be summoned to direct the carloads of customers who turned out. Carhops in bright orange jackets and white hats weaved in and out, serving 16-cent sandwiches and 5-cent Cokes on McGinley's aluminum trays.
 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 15, 1931
 
Parkmoor Carhop
 
The Parkmoor on Clayton Road at Big Bend, 1931

The Parkmoor's business took off. It attracted a wealthy clientele from Clayton and University City. The greatest portion of the business came from students at Washington University. Sit-down dining was offered in addition to curb-service.

On November 28, 1932, a banquet was given for Parkmoor employees in the restaurant's main dining room. Several of the men wore orange sweaters with a large Parkmoor "P" on the front.
 

Employee banquet in Parkmoor's main dining room, Nov 28, 1932 (McKinley, top left, standing)
(click image to enlarge)

A Parkmoor second location was opened on North Kingshighway at Cote Brilliante in 1932, across the street from McBride High School. The parking ran from Warwick to Cote Brilliante, and was the largest of the Parkmoor lots — or any St. Louis drive-in.
 

The Parkmoor on North Kingshighway at Cote Brilliante

A third Parkmoor opened in 1932 on South Kingshighway at Chippewa. It drew a crowd from Southwest High School. This location was smaller than the other Parkmoors, but proved more profitable, as larger amounts of food was served with fewer employees.
 

The Parkmoor on South Kingshighway at Chippewa

Employees from the first three Parkmoors gathered in 1934 for a group photo to celebrate the company's third anniversary. Many Parkmoor employees were from small towns in Missouri and Illinois. When they'd go home for holiday visits, they often brought back friends and family to work at The Parkmoor. This worked out well, with the restaurants seldom needing to advertise for help.
 

Carhops, cooks, waiters and other staff in front of The Parkmoor on Clayton Road, 1934
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Parkmoor carhop uniform worn by Daniel Nachtman, circa 1934
Parkmoor TraCo car window tray, circa 1934
Missouri Historical Society Collection (click image to enlarge)

In 1936 a Parkmoor was opened on DeBaliviere between Waterman and Pershing, in a space that had been the Car-Lane Sandwich Shop. There was a party room upstairs which could be rented for $10, if $10 in food was purchased. It was often populated by students from Soldan High School.

The DeBaliviere Parkmoor was close to Forest Park. Many customers stopped in after playing golf or tennis, and before or after going to the zoo or the Muny Opera. A box lunch was created for parkgoers, including fried chicken, onion rings and a pickled peach with its trademark clove.
 

The Parkmoor on DeBaliviere between Waterman and Pershing
 
Upstairs party room at The Parkmoor on DeBaliviere
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As Parkmoors popped up around town, food logistics became an issue. There was a need for quantity while still maintaining quality. McGinley addressed this in 1938 with a commissary — a two-story building adjacent to The Parkmoor in Clayton, which prepared food for all of the restaurants from a central location.
 

The Parkmoor in Clayton with commissary to right, 1938
 
Parkmoor Commissary, 1938
 
1939 Parkmoor Menu
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The Parkmoor took pride in making delicious food with wholesome ingredients. The recipes were prepared from scratch, so fresh cream, eggs, meat and vegetables were mainstays in the commissary. For 70 years, The Parkmoor prepared fresh meat daily; there were no frozen patties.

1940s Parkmoor Menu
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McGinley moved back to Dallas in 1945 to tend to his TraCo tray business, which was headquartered there. With strategic trips to St. Louis, McGinley successfully managed The Parkmoor from his Texas home.

Another Parkmoor opened on Chippewa, near Watson, in 1950. It was a small restaurant which offered several new concepts. Inside, there was counter seating only; it was the only Parkmoor to serve breakfast; and a high-tech first, curb-service customers could place their orders from speakers located adjacent to drive-up menus.
 

The Parkmoor on Chippewa, 1950

On Sunday morning, October 28, 1956, a full-page ad appeared in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat with a new addition to the Parkmoor menu — the King burger. It offered two juicy patties crowned with a toasted golden bun, and adorned in ripe red tomatoes, crispy shredded lettuce, melted cheese and "Kingslaw." It even wore a little paper crown. The burger was so large and juicy, it required a special bag just to serve it.

By dinner that night, the restaurants were under siege as customers tried to order "the hamburger in the ad." There weren't enough to go around that day and Parkmoor spent the next 43 years trying to satisfy their customer’s craving for the burger.
 

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Oct 28, 1956
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The Parkmoor at Lindbergh and Manchester opened in late 1956; it was the last Parkmoor location. It was large and very busy, with 80 drive-in ordering speakers, an indoor dining room for more than 100, and both counter and take-out service. Customer at the counter enjoyed a taste of Texas, gazing at longhorns and cow art, a tribute to McGinley’s Texas ranch.
 

The Parkmoor at Lindbergh and Manchester, 1956
 
Interior of The Parkmoor at Lindbergh and Manchester

Parkmoor menu favorites included the spicy barbecue Chickburger, crispy fried chicken, Louie's Chili, barbecue pig sandwiches and the Premium Frank, a hotdog on a toasted bun, topped with melted cheese, mustard, relish and bacon. French fries and golden onion rings were popular sides, and the Concrete All-Cream Ice Cream Shake and root beer float were favorite drinks. A favorite dessert was angel food cake topped with vanilla ice cream and mounds of J. Hungerford Smith hot fudge.

Late 1960s Parkmoor Menu
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Terry Weir was a Parkmoor carhop with vivid memories.

I went to The Parkmoor after answering an ad, as they were looking for someone to manage the restaurant. So, the next thing I know, Bob Hart came out and they bought me lunch. I went to work for The Parkmoor and found it very, very interesting. You know, it was like two different restaurants, night and day, but still the one thing was the strong love of the food that they served, and food was very important at The Parkmoor. And as I learned, they used a tremendous amount of fresh ingredients. Like every hamburger we served, we ground ourselves. We would take different cuts of meat and things that we would use for our steaks and things like that, and we’d call that a steak hamburger. Some other chain started four years later and called their hamburgers a steakburger. Well, we had a steak hamburger.

And Mr. McGinley owned a ranch in Texas, and he supplied a lot of the beef. And after a while, with a full crew working in the morning, we started serving breakfast. We had a huge coffee shop-type restaurant with two counters, 12 waitresses. Parkmoor made their own ice cream with their own fresh recipes. The Parkmoor served fresh-squeezed orange juice. We used to fresh cut French fries; we made our own pork tenderloins. We had a hot dog that was very iconic called the Pedigree Pup, grilled and sliced down the top with cheese and a strip of bacon on it. It was delicious, and we sold a lot of them every week. The Parkmoor was famous for the King Burger, which I call it the forerunner to the Big Mac, I guess. But ours was much better with two fresh patties, cheese, and they called it King Slaw Dressing, which was a very interesting recipe with onion, lettuce, mayonnaise, and some other secret ingredients. The Parkmoor was the first restaurant to slice their pickles on the bias, the long way. We had a fish sandwich called the old-fashioned fish sandwich, which was just deep-battered fried cod, served too much on a bun with this great tartar sauce recipe they had. So, we were famous for our hamburgers, our French fries, our shakes. But the one thing that Parkmoor was most famous for was its onion rings. And the onion rings were a guarded secret recipe that we would serve probably 10,000 orders a week. They were cooked in a special deep fryer that sometimes the batter might get a little thick on them, and we would say, "Hey, we’re serving onion rings, not onion doughnuts." But it was a tempura-type batter that made it different from anything.

Many celebrities would come to The Parkmoor. I remember one day KMOX radio called and said, “Have you ever done a live remote from your restaurant before?” And I said, “No.” He says, “Well, we’re going to bring in Jerry Mathers, the Beaver, and we’re going to do a two-hour show from your restaurant there.” And they did. I got to meet the Beaver. Paul Newman had a race team. He heard that we served fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the brought his entire race crew to feed – and they almost ran us out of juice oranges that day. Jerry Seinfeld used to come in the day after concerts and order an egg-white omelet.

By the late 1960s, the heyday of restaurant drive-in was over. The Parkmoor on South Kingshighway had closed in 1956. The North Kingshighway location closed in 1967, the DeBaliviere and Chippewa locations in 1969, and the Lindbergh and Manchester location in 1970.

In 1969, curb service was eliminated altogether when the Tudor-style brick building at Clayton and Big Bend was razed to build a glass-and-stone Parkmoor that seated 165 people.

The new Parkmoor opened in the summer of 1969. It was designed as a California style coffee shop, with the color orange dominating the décor and a classic diner counter with swivel stools the standout fixture. Other notable design touches included Polynesian-style handles on the doors and yards of imitation wood-grain tabletops.
 

The New Parkmoor on Clayton at Big Bend
 
1976 Parkmoor Breakfast Menu
(click image to enlarge)

In 1977, William McGinley suffered a crippling stroke. He died on January 30, 1980 at the age of 81 in a Dallas nursing home.

McGinley's daughter, Lou Ellen, took over the business from her ailing father in 1977. Juggling duties as a mother of two and wrangler of a large cattle ranch, she traveled from Texas to St. Louis once a month for 23 years to help operate The Parkmoor.
 

1993 Parkmoor Menu
(click image to enlarge)
 
The Parkmoor, December, 1998
 
Lou Ellen McGinley, October 17, 1999

As time went on, The Parkmoor found it difficult to compete with the big chains. The restaurant continued to draw crowds, especially for breakfast on weekends, but only broke even. On Sunday, October 31, 1999 The Parkmoor closed its doors for the final time.

In 2004, the Parkmoor building was demolished to make way for a new Walgreen's. Spirtas Wrecking Company began tearing down the landmark restaurant at 8 am on March 31. By the next afternoon, it was rubble.
 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 8, 2004

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