History
The first businesses using the name "milk bar" were franchises opened by Burt Brothers in 1934. The concept soon spread to the United Kingdom, where it was encouraged by the Temperance Society as a morally acceptable alternative to the pub, and over 1,000 milk bars had opened nationally by the end of 1936. Milk bars were known in the United States at least as early as 1940 as evidenced by contemporary radio recordings.
By the late 1940s, milk bars had evolved to include not only groceries, but also became places where young people could buy ready-made food, non-alcoholic drinks and socialise. Milk bars often used to include jukeboxes, pinball machines – later upgraded to video games, with tables and chairs to encourage patrons to linger and spend more money.
The milk bar as a social venue was gradually replaced by fast food franchises, such as McDonald's, and shopping malls. Much of the elaborate decor has disappeared from the remaining milk bars. They are still found in many areas, often serving as convenience stores.
Read more about this topic: Milk Bar
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)