Sunday Dinner at Shelton Drive-In

After a causal Sunday drive with the family maybe the place to go for a Sunday dinner was Shelton Drive-In.  At 35 cents for a burger and a root beer you weren't going to get much cheaper. 

In the fall of 1953 Christian Cleveland Shelton applied for a building permit to build a soda fountain and shop on North Salisbury Blvd in Salisbury Maryland at a cost of $2,500.   It was certainly in operation by 1954 and would operate until the mid 1960s.  As I recall the family, wife (Sarah)  and two boys (John and James), worked there.  Mr Shelton died in 1959 of a heart attack.    The boys would have gone off to college in the early 1960s leaving Mrs. Shelton to run the place.

Shelton Drive-In was located where Bob Lawrence car wash and Pep Boys are today.  Bob Lawrence opened his car wash operation in 1969 on the spot where Shelton's was. 

Like all the restaurants in the area they gave employment to a large number of people as the turnover rate is high in the restaurant business.

In the 1950s and 1960s you had a selection of Drive-Ins to go to, on the North end of Salisbury you had besides Shelton's, B&K, H&J (Zion Road) Acorn (Gordy rd) closer to the middle and south end of Salisbury you had Johnsons Dairy Queen, Carrols, and the always popular Oaks drive In.