America’s 1st Drive-Thru

AMERICA’S �ST DRIVE-THRU

ST DRIVE-THRU

It’s been described as a “caboose without the wheels” and as “tugboat-looking” — both true enough.

One could even say that the Springfield Maid-Rite building resembles a California Airplane Bungalow — a 1920s Arts and Crafts style — with its airy cupola perched atop the roof.

There’s been equal confusion about what year it opened — likely 1924 — and whether or not it was ever part of the

Iowa-based Maid-Rite chain — it wasn’t. But there’s one point that no one disagrees on — that the tasty, loose-meat sandwich known as a “Maid-Rite” (along with its equally tasty alter ego, the “Cheez-Rite”) is one of the Illinois capital city’s legendary culinary specialties.

Believed to be the oldest continuously operating sandwich shop in Springfield and described as the first drive-through restaurant (it was a walk-up first, from horse or car) in the

U.S., the Maid-Rite Sandwich Shop has been owned over the years by a string of operators. But luckily, for the past quarter of a century, it’s been owned by Sam Quaisi — a man that understands what this unique diner means to the Springfield community. For decades, Springfield High School students and

State of Illinois employees, among many others, have claimed the Maid-Rite as one of their favorite lunch spots. For them, and for anyone else that remembers a time when this iconic place was an important part of their life, it brings a little wave of nostalgia when they return to the neighborhood, sign the guestbook, and order up a Maid-Rite and a root beer.

“My dad, my brother, and I would go to Maid-Rite almost every Saturday, going back 40 years when Clarence Donley owned it,” said Scott Dahl, Director of the Springfield

Convention and Visitors Bureau. “I looked forward to it, I couldn’t wait to get there every Saturday. So, for me this story hits home.”

Maid-Rite in Springfield

Back in 1924, according to the Maid-Rite’s second owner (more about him in a minute), a man named Arthur Knippenberg established a sandwich shop at 118 N. Pasfield. (The National Register of Historic Places states that the building was built in 1926.) With an initial investment of $2,000, Knippenberg was looking to start a venture for his children to run. The actual builder of the wooden caboose structure with its rows of narrow double-hung windows on the north and south sides is unknown. But what is known is that the picturesque cupola served as an “air conditioner.” Sections of the wood ceiling in the main floor were hinged so they could be lowered to allow air flowing in through the cupola windows to circulate through the shop.

But business wasn’t as good as Knippenberg had hoped for, and rather than sink any more money into it, a few months later, he simply gave the business to an old friend, Clyde Holbrook. Holbrook had operated a confectionery in Beardstown — an Illinois river town about 50 miles away — before river floods washed him out of business for the fourth time. Upon Knippenberg’s generous gift, Holbrook and his wife, Nettie, moved to Springfield to operate the little sandwich stand at the corner of Pasfield and Jefferson. But at first, the shop apparently didn’t seem like much of an improvement over the flooded sweet shop. Interviewed in 1971 at the age of 87 by a Springfield newspaper reporter, Holbrook was quoted as saying, “I sat in the shop 14 hours once, and at the end of the day I had $1.45. I couldn’t even pay for my room most of the time.” But Holbrook stuck it out for the next two decades.

Meanwhile, in 1926, the Maid-Rite restaurant chain got its start in Muscatine, Iowa, via a butcher named Fred Angell who added spices to “loose meat” and created a special ground-beef creation called a “Maid-Rite’’ sandwich. The common speculation is that when the Springfield sandwich shop opened, it was called something else — no one seems to know what — and that Holbrook adopted the Maid-Rite name for his own business after the Iowa chain became known. An alternative theory is that the earlier date of 1924 was claimed to avoid a dispute over a trade name. Anyway, business must have improved, because in 1930, Holbrook extended the building 12 feet to the east for more storage and workspace, matching the extension to the original construction.

Fifty More Years, Four More Operators

The Holbrooks operated the place for about 20 years before selling it for $22,500 in 1946 to a man named Cecil Evey, who lived next door. Evey operated the stand for a dozen years before he leased it to Ruby Pritchett, who ran it for about ten years, from 1958 to 1968, before another lessee, Leona Denton, took it over.

In 1970, Clarence Donley, a former Ford Motor Company employee from Detroit, Michigan, purchased the shop from Evey and devoted his efforts to building the business. In the mid ‘80s, Donley built on another dining room, which could seat 40, in addition to the original three-stool counter and tiny dining room which could seat about a dozen customers. Outside, he added picnic tables, and inside, he added the “Cheez-Rite” to the menu. The shop was finally added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

In an odd twist of events, in 1993, GLS Investments, owners of the Maid-Rite chain at the time, tried to open a restaurant

Owner-operator Sam Quaisi in the kitchen under the historic menu board.

on the west side of Springfield. But Donley successfully filed suit to stop the attempt.

However, after a successful 25-year run, Donley was ready to retire and sell the Maid-Rite. He would just have to find the right buyer to carry on its legacy. Little did he know that his soon-to-be successor was about to walk across the street and into the eatery.

Taking it to 100

The independent Maid-Rite location already had 70 years or so under its proverbial belt when Sam Quaisi, an Illinois Department of Revenue employee who worked in a state building literally right across the street, showed up. Although Quaisi had worked in the food business, including a stint in the kitchen at the Illinois Governor’s Mansion, he hadn’t yet owned an eatery of his own. “I [was] always helping people, I worked at Illini Country Club, at Sangamo Club, at Maldaner’s, and I like serving people. The food business is an art when you care for how it looks — if it looks nice on your plate. And I like to eat also!” said Quaisi.

Now, he had the opportunity to buy the sandwich shop that was just steps from where he’d been working in an office, which he felt was an unhealthy lifestyle. “You’re sitting, you’re doing the same thing every day. I think people were just an eating machine when they were in the office, with junk food and cola. Maybe one out of ten was overweight and I was not going to be one of those persons. I like the food business. I came over and talked to Donley, and he was willing to sell. Everything went smooth. He wanted to get out of it, so it was at the right time. We talked, we shook hands. I don’t turn anything down — I’m always going forward.”

On October 24, 1995, a certificate of ownership of business was filed in Sangamon County, showing that Sam and his wife Huda Quaisi were the proud new owners of the MaidRite Sandwich Shop. It wasn’t long before Quaisi became a familiar, smiling face in downtown Springfield. Now, 27 years later, he finds himself one of eight locals that the Springfield

Convention and Visitors Bureau touts as Living Legends — entrepreneurs of iconic attractions and eateries with their own souvenir Explorer Passport.

“I get here at 7:30 every day. I do the meat every day, make sure I have enough root beer for a day, and make sure everything is ready before the first tourists come,” Quaisi explained. “The menu is still the same, the only thing we changed is we added the horseshoe. You know Springfield is a horseshoe [sandwich] town.”

Once in a while, something unusual breaks up the day-today routine. In 2002, there occurred another brush with the Maid-Rite company. The Maid-Rite chain had been bought by Bradley Burt of Des Moines, Iowa, and Burt assumed that the Springfield Maid-Rite was part of the deal and sent his press release to the State Journal-Register. Staff writer Dave Bakke quipped, “But there was one problem. Our Maid-Rite isn’t their Maid-Rite.” Burt and his newly acquired chain stood corrected after contact with Quaisi, and life went on as usual at the Springfield eatery.

There, visitors are always a big deal and highly appreciated — especially this year, after some relative quietude in 2020 and 2021. Visitors find that besides his native tongue of Arabic, and English, Quaisi also speaks Spanish and a little Greek. “I love our visitors, but most visitors are from Europe and they don’t [always] speak much English, although some of them do. We explain to them as much as we can, how long we’ve been here. Even our customers, if someone speaks their language, they communicate for us,” said Quaisi.

Quaisi keeps two guest registers — one for first-time locals and one for his out-of-town visitors. “We have them sign it, and we also give them a souvenir from us, a sticker or a pen that says Maid-Rite — that is for people visiting. Local people, some come two or three times a month… I enjoy talking to customers, I enjoy being here.”

The guest registers are full of comments, ranging from “great food,” “love Maid-Rite,” and “better than Iowa,”

to “great memories,” “4th generation [customer],” and “5th generation [customer].” Another comment states, “My grandmother ‘Queenie’ came here on horseback with her father in the 1910s,” signed by a customer named John Macklin (the “4th generation” customer). The debate about when the place opened never ends! “That’s another reason I like going there, to see Sam standing there, always with a smile on his face and always greets me by name when I go there. I’m sure he does that for most of his customers — his attention on that The sandwich shop is situated on the corner of Jefferson and Pasfield Streets. point is really, really cool,” said Dahl. “I love going in and sitting in that original part. To me it brings back memories and just takes me back to a time when things were much simpler.”

Into the Future

The mix of customers in the little white-with-red-trim eatery hasn’t changed much over the years — plenty of locals, former residents, Illinois State Fair goers and Route 66 travelers, but this year there’s the addition of the international tourists returning. Quaisi still sees his regulars come in two or three times a week and calls them by name. The menu board stays the same as does the root beer formula: a syrup made with spices and herbs, vanilla, sugar, water, sometimes with a scoop of ice cream if requested for a root beer float. The loose meat is prepared each morning — using the same recipe since the place opened in the ‘20s — and served on a steamed bun with mustard, pickle relish, and onion. For a quarter a song, a jukebox spins out favorite tunes from the past including the music of the Coasters, Shangri-Las, Beach Boys, and Elvis Presley. With any luck at all, it will all stay the same for the foreseeable future. “The Maid-Rite provides that authentic experience that Route 66 travelers are looking for. I go there and step back in time 40 years and it hasn’t changed much. It’s still that old train caboose from 1924, and even though they added on the dining area in the ‘80s, you still get that feel from the 1920s,” said Dahl. “It’s hard to replace that, and I think that’s the authentic side of 66 that travelers are looking for.” Authentic, indeed. Quaisi served more than 600 sandwiches on the restaurant’s 90th official anniversary in 2014. But now he has his eye on the Maid-Rite’s 100-year anniversary, which is coming up in 2024. There’ll be quite a bit to celebrate, as the little low-slung wood frame building will have lasted a century (more or less), with its patrons lining up for their loose-meat sandwiches since 1924. Or thereabouts.

A LASTING SLOGAN

Along Route 66 and Interstate 40 through the High Plains of the American Southwest, if lucky, travelers might still catch sight along the sometimes lonely highway of one or two remaining signs adorned with the reassuring words, “Tucumcari Tonite!” This wildly successful slogan campaign once put Tucumcari, New Mexico, on the map as “the Gateway to the West,” with many miles worth of advertisements championing the little city’s 2,000 available motel rooms. Although Tucumcari later experienced economic hardship due to the interstate bypass and the loss of commercial tourism, its rich history is encapsulated in the quirky “Tucumcari Tonite!” slogan that still welcomes weary travelers. It’s a slogan that refuses to die, as dedicated community members of Tucumcari work diligently to reinvigorate its use.

Tucumcari began its status as a national crossroads and hub for American travelers when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad founded a construction camp there in 1901. In the early 20th Century, the camp grew into a town, using the names Ragtown, Six Shooter Siding, and Douglas before settling on Tucumcari, which became a regional railroad center. Tucumcari then became a popular motorist stop after the original alignment of Route 66 came through in 1926. Nicknamed Route 66 Boulevard, the Mother Road ran east-west right through the center of town, where dozens of motor services such as motels, restaurants, and gas stations sprang up to welcome travelers.

It was the plethora of neon-draped accommodations that inspired the “Tucumcari Tonite!” signs though, and it didn’t take long to gather notoriety. In the mid-20th Century, the signs began to pop up along the long miles approaching Tucumcari, with an invitation for tourists to stop, relax, and rent a room for the night. As the largest stopping point on the highway between Amarillo, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, motorists took comfort from the catchphrase with a collective sigh of relief that there would be motel rooms ready and waiting for them after a long day on the road.

“It was miles from anywhere, so back in the day when people couldn’t travel as far, Tucumcari was the most logical place to spend the night,” said Connie Loveland, director of the nonprofit organization Tucumcari Main Street. In tandem with the vintage charm of some of the town’s neon-kissed motels themselves, such as the famed Blue Swallow Motel, and ever popular Motel Safari, the “Tucumcari Tonite!” signs themselves became a memorable attraction for highway travelers. However, the success story of the “Tucumcari Tonite!” campaign has not always been linear. In the 1950s, following President Eisenhower’s development of a new interstate highway system, I-40 passed through the fringes of the city limits. An original alignment of the Mother Road remained in use, still funneling some travelers through the downtown area, yet, even so, the city suffered a drastic drop in tourism, with the local population declining slowly but steadily ever since the 1950 census. Tucumcari during the second half of the 20th Century began to resemble a ghost town, a hub of decaying Route 66 cultural artifacts enduring a long economic downturn.

And yet, even amid downswings, the spirit of Tucumcari endured, partly due to the continued fascination with the fading but iconic signs leading to the town’s borders.

In 2008, members of the Tucumcari Main Street organization voted to replace the former “Gateway to the West” slogan with a revitalized promotion of the “Tucumcari Tonite!” catchphrase, in the form of four new billboards. In addition to the endorsement of colorful murals, the renovation of vintage motels, and the restoration of neon lights downtown, community supporters continue to promote Tucumcari’s endurance and long-term association with Route 66.

“Tucumcari is one of the few places that has embraced Route 66 and worked to keep the neon and to keep that traditional feel, which continues to draw people in. Local businesses have done such a good job of preserving their buildings and preserving the spirit of Route 66,” said Loveland. “I’ve always said that the communities along Route 66 are really like an extended family, and the places that have embraced that have been really successful.”

As the 2026 centennial of Route 66 approaches and the momentum breaks through the quiet of the past couple years, travelers and inhabitants alike along the Mother Road are celebrating those communities that have endured through all the ups and downs. Tucumcari is undeniably one of these gems, and “Tucumcari Tonite!” reminds us that there are still comfortable, vintage (and renovated) motel rooms a-plenty to draw us back to the picturesque little High Plains city along the Route.