Back in the day, every neighborhood in Kingsport had some kind of identifying business.. some establishment that everybody could identify with, that always brings people out to visit, maybe enjoy good food, or each other's company.
In the 1950's. Riverview had several of those businesses.. Emmitt Collins' grocery store, Paul Taylor's grocery-liquor store, Reverend C.E. Edge's store, the "Hut." But there was only one where you could enjoy BOTH great food and lots of good fellowship.
CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE THEM
It was the old Dairy Mart on Lincoln Street, now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. It was located directly across the street from the old Riverview swimming pool, now a splash pad."Every Sunday, we made about 200 dollars and that was just in milk shakes alone," says 91-year-old Nora Mae Taylor, as she recalled the little box restaurant that she and her husband Jason operated for years. "We had chocolate, vanilla and strawberry..they were all homemade. We had a mixer that mixed it, but everything that went in we did by hand."
The Dairy Mart's claim to fame wasn't in liquid form, though. It was one item that no full-plate fast food restaurant can do without now.
"The foot-long hot dog in Kingsport was born at our restaurant," Mrs. Taylor says. "We were the first restaurant, black or white, in Kingsport that had foot-long hot dogs. This was 6 or 7 years before Pal's. We got them from up in Bristol at Valleydale, and they told us nobody else from Kingsport ever ordered foot-longs but us. I come up with the idea, I don't why I come up with it. They were 25 cents apiece, and the little hot dogs were 10 cents. We had relish.. the sauce, hot dog sauce.. and onions. I despised cutting up all them onions, eyes would water.. I had lots of onions to cut up. People started coming to Riverview to get them foot-longs. The children would come up and the foot-longs were so big, they'd have to share. We had hamburgers and ice cream stuff, but we sold more foot-longs than anything else."BANANA SPLIT BOWLS--MRS. NORA MAE STILL HAS THEM...NOW, THEY'RE ANTIQUES
The banana splits were a hit, too."They were also 25 cents," says Mrs. Taylor. "I'd take a whole banana and split it up in this little glass dish. Nowadays, they used those plastic dishes that you can take with you, but ours were glass. We'd put ice cream, strawberries, nuts and the chocolate. They'd eat 'em right there and then give us the dish back. Nobody ever walked off with one, they always gave 'em back. They're antique dishes now."
"You couldn't eat inside, so everybody just ate outside underneath the two trees between our place and Reverend (C.E.) Edge's," Mrs. Taylor remembers. "We had (daughter) Brenda and (son) Ronnie down there helping us out, and the kids would always talk Brenda into giving them a little bit more, an extra strawberry, extra chocolate. Jason took her to the side after the day was over and say 'you can't give the profits away.' Every once in a while though, the kids did get extra."
Mrs. Taylor remembers fondly, the McMiller brothers."Mark and Rusty would come by, and of course they'd want the ice cream," she recalls. "The other kids would have their dimes, nickels and pennies ready, and Mark and Rusty would act like they had theirs, too. The other kids would get ice cream cones, and the boys would get ice cream. I'd say 'honey, where's your money?' and they'd say 'we don't have any money.' They were such cute kids.. I'd end up giving it to 'em anyway. It was just a dime, so I'd go ahead and give 'em a dime and they'd give it right back. They loved that ice cream."
OLD WALK-UP RESTAURANT BESIDE TODAY'S PEGGY ANN
So what brought the Dairy Mart to Lincoln Street back in the 50's?"(Husband) Jason went up to this place out there by Peggy Ann's on Center Street," Mrs. Taylor remembers. "There was this little building right beside the Peggy Ann's, and when he went up there, people were crowded up around it. Jason saw that and said he's gonna bring that little restaurant to Riverview. We had $12,000 saved up, and he put every penny in that restaurant. We never did make it back with hot dogs and hamburgers at 10 cents, but we had a good time selling stuff."
Mrs. Taylor says, the Dairy Mart always got excellent marks from the Health Department, because they worked hard at keeping it clean.
"It was a lot of nighttime work," she says. "We had to tear down that ice cream machine every night, clean it, and then put it back together for the next morning. It wasn't hard work, it was just time-consuming. When the Health Department came by, they'd inspect the counters for dust and check the refrigerators, and everything would always be clean.""We always got "A's."
"And whenever the Riverview Pool was open during the spring and summer months, you'd have to park a block away and then walk to the Dairy Mart," said Mrs. Taylor. "We had both black customers and white customers, because we were within sight of Wilcox Drive, just past the old junkyard."
EAST SIDE OF SULLIVAN STREET AT CENTER STREET, 1963--THE TAYLOR DRY CLEANERS WAS LOCATED NEAR THE GROUP OF BUILDINGS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF SULLIVAN STREET (BOTTOM OF THE PICTURE)
The Taylors were also operating a dry cleaners on Main Street a few blocks away from the Sullivan-Center Street intersection, when Mr. Taylor decided to bring the Dairy Mart to Riverview. "We were making a whole lot more money at the dry cleaners, with dress shirts at 45 or 50 cents, and suits at 75 cents apiece. We just couldn't do both places at once. In the early 60's, we decided to sell the restaurant."The Dairy Mart closed down shortly after being sold.
Mrs. Taylor has watched the growth of Pal's Restaurants, and its 22 restaurants around the Upper East Tennessee area. What advice could Mrs. Taylor give "Pal" Barger these days, that helped the Dairy Mart back when?
"Always have a good location, and don't forget the customer," Mrs. Taylor says. "Get to know your regulars. Greet everybody with a smile, and 'have a good day.' Nobody does that much now. They're busy trying to get you in and out and they forget the courtesy."
The customer was always right, at the one place in Kingsport, that was always "tasty sweet."
IF YOU HAVE OLD PICTURES OF BUSINESSES OR EVENTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AT DOUGLASSRIVERVIEW@GMAIL.COM, AND WE'LL FEATURE A STORY ON THEM.
