12 Old-Fashioned Soda Fountains Still Serving Across the USA

I have a real weakness for the specific hiss a soda jerk makes when fizzy water hits a shot of syrup. My grandmother used to order me a cherry phosphate at a lunch counter that has long since closed, and I have been chasing that sound ever since.

All over the country, a stubborn handful of counters never traded the hand-pulled version for a machine that spits out sludge. They still scoop real ice cream, blend malts in metal cups, and keep the marble-counter magic alive one glass at a time.

Below are twelve old-fashioned soda fountains still serving across the USA, from a 1900 parlor with onyx counters to the oldest fountain in Texas. Some are working drugstores, some are museums you can eat inside, and every one still does it by hand. Grab a stool and read on.

1. The Franklin Fountain, Pennsylvania

Walk into Old City Philadelphia and brothers Ryan and Eric Berley have built you a portal to 1904. They opened this parlor inside their family’s 1898 building, all pressed-tin ceilings, mosaic tile floors, and clerks in paper caps and bow ties.

They named it for Ben Franklin, who once lived just footsteps away, and they make nearly everything the patient way. The syrups are cooked from scratch, the ice cream is churned in house, and the phosphates taste like they did a century ago.

Order a Franklin Mint sundae or an old-fashioned egg cream and you will understand why the line spills onto the sidewalk on summer nights. It is a working history lesson you get to eat.

The brothers researched forgotten flavors like teaberry and sarsaparilla so the menu reads like an apothecary from another era. Even the paper straws and glass dishes feel deliberately, wonderfully out of time.

Where: 116 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19106

2. Crown Candy Kitchen, Missouri

Two Greek best friends, Harry Karandzieff and Pete Jugaloff, opened this Old North St. Louis landmark in 1913. The same family still runs it four generations later, and the tin ceiling and wooden booths look almost exactly as they did.

The chocolate malts arrive old-school, blended with real ice cream and served with the frosty metal mixing cup on the side. There is a legendary challenge here: down five malts in thirty minutes and they are free.

Almost nobody wins that bet, so most people settle for a towering BLT stacked with slab bacon instead. Come hungry, and maybe bring a friend to share the load.

Where: 1401 St. Louis Ave, St. Louis, MO 63106

3. Fair Oaks Pharmacy, California

On a corner of historic Route 66 in South Pasadena, this working pharmacy has poured fountain drinks since 1915. A local entrepreneur named Gertrude Ozmun financed the original building, a rare thing for a woman in 1914.

Restored to its early splendor, the room wears honeycomb tile floors, stamped-tin ceilings, and an antique fountain hauled in from Joplin, Missouri. Every surface feels like it belongs in a black-and-white photograph.

Slide onto a stool for a cherry phosphate, a real egg cream, or a malt thick enough to stall a straw. The Route 66 sundae and the Kitchen Sink have both earned their television close-ups.

Where: 1526 Mission St, South Pasadena, CA 91030

4. Doumar’s Cones and Barbecue, Virginia

Abe Doumar helped invent the ice cream waffle cone at the 1904 World’s Fair, and his 1905 cone-rolling machine still turns in the front window of this Norfolk institution. His brother George opened the Monticello Avenue spot in 1934.

Behind the counter sits a full soda fountain pouring hand-squeezed limeades and floats. Out in the lot, carhops still deliver cones and peppery pork barbecue right to your car window, tray hooked over the glass.

Curb service here never really went out of style, which is a small miracle in an age of drive-thru speakers. Order a cone the moment it comes off that ancient iron.

Regulars swear by the pork barbecue and the tangy limeade in equal measure, then argue happily about which one you should get first. The answer, of course, is both.

Where: 1919 Monticello Ave, Norfolk, VA 23517

5. Wilton Candy Kitchen, Iowa

This little storefront on Cedar Street claims a title nobody has topped: the oldest continuously operating ice cream and soda fountain in the world. A confectionery has stood on the spot since the 1860s.

Greek immigrant Gus Nopoulos gave it the Candy Kitchen name in 1910, and his family poured sodas here for the better part of a century. The building has since earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

The sundaes, sodas, and hand-dipped ice cream still come across a counter that has served small-town Iowa for generations. Order a green river soda, settle in, and let the century wash over you.

Where: 310 Cedar St, Wilton, IA 52778

6. Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain, New York

Siblings Gia Giasullo and Peter Freeman rescued a shuttered 1920s Carroll Gardens pharmacy in 2010 and turned it back into the neighborhood’s living room. The old apothecary shelves and marble counter survived, and so did the soul of the block.

Peter cheerfully calls himself the head jerk, and he has the national egg cream trophies to back it up. His Sundae of Broken Dreams, all salted caramel, pretzels, and hot fudge, has become a small Brooklyn legend.

The place hums with kids after school and grown-ups who never outgrew a good float. It is proof that a soda fountain can be born new and still feel a hundred years old.

The siblings host neighborhood movie nights and stoop sales too, so the shop does double duty as a gathering spot. That old drugstore never really left the block, it just started scooping ice cream.

Where: 513 Henry St, Brooklyn, NY 11231

7. MacAlpine’s Diner and Soda Fountain, Arizona

Tucked on North 7th Street in Phoenix, this counter opened in the late 1920s as Birch’s pharmacy and became MacAlpine’s under Fred MacAlpine in 1938. It is the oldest operating soda fountain in Arizona, and it wears every year proudly.

The 1940s soda machines still fizz away, mixed with dozens of house syrups into just about any flavor combination you dare to name. Ask the counter for something wild and they will build it for you.

Half the fun is the attached vintage shop, packed with costume jewelry, old records, and cat-eye sunglasses to browse while your malt comes up. Come for the soda, stay for the treasure hunt.

Where: 2303 N 7th St, Phoenix, AZ 85006

8. Elliston Place Soda Shop, Tennessee

Nashville’s oldest restaurant started life in 1939, when a young man named Lynn Chandler bought the soda fountain out of Elliston Pharmacy. The famous neon sign still glows on the Rock Block, inviting a new crowd to meet at the counter.

The kitchen leans hard into the classics: thick chocolate shakes, malts, phosphates, banana splits, and a plate of meat-and-three when dessert alone will not do. The booths have hosted students and musicians for decades.

When the shop moved a few steps east and reopened in 2022, they brought the old counter and that beloved sign right along with them. Some things are simply too good to leave behind.

Where: 2105 Elliston Pl, Nashville, TN 37203

9. Zaharakos, Indiana

Three brothers from Sparta, Greece opened this Columbus confectionery on October 20, 1900. Walk in and your jaw drops. Two Mexican onyx soda fountains, bought straight from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, anchor the room.

Around them sit Tiffany-style lamps, a long mahogany backbar, and a 1908 Welte orchestrion that still plays while you eat. It is part ice cream parlor, part living museum, and entirely a showpiece.

The counter turns out phosphates, sundaes, and the beloved GOM cheese brr, a gooey grilled cheese locals order by the dozen. Save room for a slice of the coconut cream pie.

A restoration a while back polished the marble and got the orchestrion singing again, so the place looks better now than it has in decades. Upstairs, a small museum tells the whole soda-fountain story.

Where: 329 Washington St, Columbus, IN 47201

10. Grants Pass Pharmacy, Oregon

In southern Oregon, this is that increasingly rare thing: a real working drugstore with a soda fountain still humming in the back. It has filled prescriptions and poured sodas since the 1930s.

The fountain has become a genuine local landmark, cheerful enough to land on the Discovery Channel. The stools fill up at lunch for cherry phosphates, root beer floats, and hand-packed milkshakes.

If you want something savory first, the specialty hot dogs give you an excuse to order dessert without guilt. It is the kind of counter a whole town quietly grows up around.

Where: 414 SW 6th St, Grants Pass, OR 97526

11. Wilson’s Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor, Wisconsin

Oscar and Mattie Wilson opened this Door County icon in 1906, and its yellow-and-white striped awning has been a summer beacon across Eagle Harbor ever since. Generations of families plan their vacations around a stop here.

Inside, the old-fashioned fountain and a jukebox of vintage rock keep the whole mood firmly mid-century. The home-brewed draft root beer alone is worth the drive up the peninsula.

Order a flame-broiled burger first if you must, but the real reason anyone climbs onto these stools is a big scooped sundae. Few places on the lakeshore feel more like a proper summer ritual.

Where: 9990 Water St, Ephraim, WI 54211

12. Star Drug Store, Texas

Built in 1886 and designed by famed architect Nicholas Clayton, this Galveston stunner is the oldest soda fountain in Texas. A horseshoe-shaped tile counter went in by 1917 and still anchors the room today.

The store holds a prouder distinction too: it became the first desegregated lunch counter in the city, a quiet piece of history poured alongside the milkshakes. That legacy is part of every visit.

After a 1998 fire, the Tilts family lovingly restored the place, and it now serves classic breakfasts and fountain treats beneath a gleaming vintage Coca-Cola mural. History and a malt, under one roof.

The building itself is a Galveston landmark, brick since 1909 and full of pressed-tin character. Come for the malt, and you leave with a little of the island’s story too.

Where: 510 23rd St, Galveston, TX 77550

Pull Up a Stool

The soda fountain nearly disappeared, and these twelve counters simply refused to let it. Whether you are chasing a chocolate malt in a frosty metal cup or an egg cream pulled by a self-described head jerk, there is a marble counter out there with your name on it.

So pick a road trip, order whatever made the place famous, and do not forget to tip your soda jerk. Some traditions are worth crossing a few state lines for.

Featured image: Shannon Rae via MacAlpine’s Diner and Soda Fountain