Review: Green Valley Drugs Serves Up More Than Prescriptions

1915 Hoover Court
822-1151

 

By Evan and Deborah Lockridge 

It's like a trip back in time, sitting on a round stainless steel stool with vinyl upholstery, watching shakes and malts being made with an old-fashioned milkshake blender in dented metal shaker cups.

It's lunch at the soda fountain at Green Valley Drugs in Hoover, an area tradition since 1961. Over the years, while most drug stores took out the soda fountain/lunch counter, Green Valley Drugs kept it in, helping to bring customers into Hoover's oldest continuously run business.

We arrived shortly before noon on a Saturday and took two stools at the counter. There is also a row of booths against the dark-paneled wall and a handful of tables between the booths and the pharmacy area. In addition to the pharmacy in the back of the store, Green Valley offers a mixture of healthcare products, greeting cards, gift items and necessities such as school supplies.

The menus, tucked between the old-fashioned metal napkin dispensers and the salt and pepper shakers, are simple front-and-back affairs, with sandwiches on one side, breakfast and beverages on the other. Everything is served in or on Styrofoam containers -- cups, plates, to-go boxes. You help yourself to napkins, ketchup and A-1 steak sauce.

Service was prompt and courteous. We started out with sweet tea, lemonade, and a chocolate malt ($2.65). The lemonade was real soda-fountain fare, with fresh squeezed lemon chunks still floating in the cup. The malt was one of the best we have had -- thick, rich, plenty of malt, and not overdosed on the chocolate.

The menu features fairly standard sandwiches, such as burgers, baked ham sandwiches, roast turkey sandwiches, grilled chicken or tuna salad, plus a few more unusual selections, such as a sliced egg sandwich or pimiento cheese. You can get soups or chili -- homemade or canned, or a tuna salad plate or pattie plate.

Evan ordered a BLT Club, but Deborah was having a hard time making a decision. Not too many places you get get good pimiento cheese out. (On a follow-up visit, we both enjoyed a pimiento cheese, lettuce and tomato club.) She asked the waitress what was really good, and the reply, without hesitation, was a cheeseburger. So a cheeseburger it was, ordered "with everything" except mayonnaise, and an order of fries to share. Each sandwich was $3.85.

As we waited for our order, the place filled up, both with in-store diners and those ordering take-out. It seemed to take a while, but we could watch the food being prepared, and these sandwiches were being made with care, not slopped together fast.

The BLT Club was good, a double-decker bacon, lettuce and tomato with a nice portion of bacon and plenty of good mayonnaise. The tomatoes even tasted like real tomatoes.

The cheeseburger recommendation was right on target. Turns out, Green Valley Drugs is known almost as much for its burgers as for its shakes and malts. The burger patty was generous but not monstrous, made fresh, with just enough fat to be juicy but not greasy. A neat touch was mustard and ketchup on both the top and the bottom of the bun, plus a whole slice of sweet onion, and enough pickles to completely cover the burger. (None of this one- or two-pickle chintziness you see at fast food places.)

The fries were fresh out of the fryer. They could have used a little more salt, but other than that were about as good as fries get, medium-thickness crinkle-cuts, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside.

This old-fashioned soda fountain is also a great place to get a sweet tooth fix. In addition to shakes and malts, you can get ice cream, sundaes and banana splits. Breakfast is served weekdays until 10:30, with standard fare such as pancakes, eggs, grits, sausage, and breakfast sandwiches.

Published May 2005