Crossword clues for carhop
carhop
- Server on skates, maybe
- Erstwhile summer job
- Waitress of a sort
- Waiter on wheels
- Sonic server
- Skating waiter
- Skating server
- Server who might wear roller skates
- Server at a drive-in
- Rolling server
- Old-school drive-in employee
- Meals-on-wheels worker?
- Job at a drive-in joint
- Employee depicted in "American Graffiti"
- Drive-in staffer
- Certain waitress
- Auto tender
- Server on skates, perhaps
- Meals on wheels server?
- Drive-in employee of old
- Server at a drive-in restaurant
- Drive-in server
- Drive-in worker
- Drive-in restaurant server
- "American Graffiti" extra
- A waiter at a drive-in restaurant
- Drive-in waitress or waiter
- Drive-in restaurant employee
- Complain about call to American waitress
- Fifties server
- Server on skates
- Drive-in waiter
- Sonic employee
Wiktionary
n. (context US English) A person who waits on customers at a drive-in restaurant, sometimes on rollerskates
WordNet
n. a waiter at a drive-in restaurant
Wikipedia
A carhop is a waiter or waitress who brings fast food to people in their cars at drive-in restaurants. Carhops usually work on foot but sometimes use roller skates, as depicted in movies such as American Graffiti and television shows such as Happy Days. Carhops have long been associated with hot rods.
The first carhops appeared in 1921 when automobiles were beginning to be a common sight in Dallas, Texas. Two men, a businessman named J.G. Kirby and a physician named R.W. Jackson, decided to take advantage of the fact that many people owned cars and more were coming. They realized that many of the drivers would rather not get out of their cars to eat. They opened a restaurant called the Pig Stand, which had male carhops from its inception. The A&W corporate website actually claims to have opened the first carhop restaurant in 1923, just two years after the Pig Stand initiated carhops. The word itself isn't used in print until 1937.
Women soon replaced male carhops during World War II, because when most men were in the war, restaurants discovered that a pretty girl sold more food.
Carhops began disappearing during the 1960s as newer drive-ins began offering drive-through service. They can be found today at a few remaining original drive-in stands and nostalgic fast food establishments, mostly in smaller and rural towns with local ownership. Sonic Drive-In still uses carhops as servers at over 3,400 restaurants. There has been a resurgence, with some franchises cashing in on the nostalgic aspect and tapping into the memories of the baby boomers. The aluminum window trays used by carhops are still manufactured today, mainly at a small shop called Meritt Tool & Die in Vermontville MI, and distributed to many drive in restaurants around the country. The uniforms of early carhops were important, as many drive-ins were competing and something eye-catching was seen as gamesmanship. There was often a military, airline, space age or cheerleader theme, or any other concept an owner thought would bring customers in.
A carhop was the most prominent image on the poster for the film American Graffiti. They were also often seen in the first two seasons of Happy Days.
Usage examples of "carhop".
I would, and for a while she worked at one of these carhop places, and I minded the baby then, too.
He was still crouched next to her in the open car door as if he were a carhop and Claire wanted burgers.
Rosemary, a trim, attractive brunette of thirty-eight, was a former carhop who, after a series of waitress jobs and a bad marriage, had opened her own dress shop, the Boutique Carriage, on North Figueroa in Los Angeles, and made a big success of it.
She had met her first husband while working as a carhop at the Brown Derby Drive-In in Los Feliz in the late 1940s, while still in her teens.
My sister, Ruthie, was a carhop for two summers and set the record for falling in love, her two-month summer gig resulting in 4eacba infatuations and 3eaifd Real Things.
In my ears was an angry silence and the voices of curious carhops possibly wondering if I was low enough on the food chain to mock out loud.
They also talk about no tipping, no jukeboxes and no carhops and that they have dentists, salesmen, farmers and veterinarians running their units.
They closed the business for three months, fired the twenty carhops, got rid of all the china and silverware, and reopened with a new, entirely novel idea: that the customer would have to come to a window to collect the food rather than have it brought to the car.
The pink stucco hotel in the middle of the main drag had a big canopied patio out front and a discreet sign that said CASA DEL PONIENTE, Three valet carhops stood alertly outside in black vests and white shirts waiting to do anything you told them to do.
AandWill root beer stand, eating hot dogs, and watching the carhops show off on their skates.
Even given the sudden autumnlike turn in the temperature, the AandWill was crowded with cars, kids, and brave short-skirted carhops on roller 99 skates.
Mal Lunceford, a Hollywood Station harness bull--he used to ogle the carhops at Scrivener's Drive-in, puff out his chest to show off his pistol medals.
I drove on past the gaudy neons and the false fronts behind them, the sleazy hamburger joints that look like palaces under the colors, the circular drive-ins as gay as circuses with the chipper hard-eyed carhops, the brilliant counters, and the sweaty greasy kitchens that would have poisoned a toad.