At its peak, Friendly's had 850 restaurants across the United States. However, the chain has experienced a significant decline and now operates only 138 restaurants. The one location that triggers many memories was on 683 Old Country Road in Westbury, NY. Don’t be fooled by the street name - there was nothing “Country” in Westbury when I was growing up there.
When you’re a kid, location (i.e., can you walk or bike there?) and value (i.e., can I pay the check with the change I can steal from my parents without them noticing) are much more important than cuisine or ambience. Although we had a very enticing situation at my friend’s house that included free munchies, it came with a heavy non-monetary cost; his mother’s eavesdropping on our conversations. We proved this hypothesis one time while she was “watching” TV nearby, and one of our friends gradually lowered the volume, using a primitive 1970’s remote, without her noticing.
Friendly’s became our “third place”, before sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the concept in the early 1980s. Before Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. One time, I had an innocent Jim Dandy® Sundae with a girl from my high school accounting class, and my friend called me within minutes after I got home to ask me who I was dating. A friend of his mother’s had seen me, and the Westbury gossip chain worked more efficiently than today’s state-of-the-art quantum communication networks.
Friendly’s also tolerated our delinquent behavior, whether it be leaving our meager tip in a dish of melted ice cream or the time my friend thought the waitress said, “Chocolate Almond Sh*t” as the flavor of the day. He found it so funny he repeated it several times while laughing before an adult customer yelled at him and said, “Enough already, I heard you the first three times.” There was tragedy, too. When he was 15, one of my close friends from elementary school, who had gotten in with the wrong crowd when we started junior high, was hit by a car just outside the Friendly’s after our school’s annual Spring Carnival. Fortunately, he only suffered a broken leg, and rumor had it that he was so high he wasn’t in any pain.
My absolute favorite item on the menu was the Fribble®. In their own words, “this isn't your average milkshake. Our famous Friendly's Fribble® milkshakes are the creamiest, tastiest milkshakes ever!” As a teenager, I wasn’t that discerning, but I understood volume and a good deal when I saw one. If my memory is correct, the large was 75 cents ($3.40 in today’s dollars) and the “Junior” was 50 cents. (Whenever I specifically call out the impact of inflation in one of my stories, it makes me feel very old.) I never, ever, ever ordered the Fribble® Junior. My specialty off-menu twist, probably because of the extra sugar, was the black and white Fribble®, which was vanilla with an added shot of chocolate.
Another delectable memory of Friendly’s was of the takeout variety. As a tweenager, I spent three years at a summer camp in the Berkshires in New England. Our mid-seventies version of DoorDash and Uber Eats was begging a counselor to bring back some partially melted late-night, half-gallon of ice cream in a freezer bag after their night out on the town. I financed this contraband $2.99 per half-gallon of ice-cream by writing inane letters to my grandmother, who bribed her grandchildren by enclosing a dollar bill with each of her replies. Since my parents provided me with stamps, and my time at that point in my life was worthless, this was pure profit! To prepare for our midnight snack, we borrowed spoons and knives from the kitchen. We didn’t need any bowls because we ate directly out of the carton (using the knife to designate portion ownership), and we put a towel underneath just in case the melted ice cream seeped through.
In determining who would share with who, there were more alliances formed and broken than in a contentious Risk game. More often than not, I split a half gallon (for those of you keeping score at home, that’s a quart per person) of a vanilla-based flavor, my favorites being chocolate chip and vanilla fudge. Admittedly, we’d need at least one more stakeholder and investor for the richer, chocolate-based flavors, like Chocolate Marshmallow.
Nutrition labels were different back then, but thanks to ChatGPT, I was able to create the “Nutrition Facts” for a 1/2 gallon container containing two (2) one (1) quart servings of Friendly’s Chocolate Chip ice cream.
Fast-forward from the late 1970s to 2004. Occasionally, I would take my daughter, Ariel, and our neighbor, Daniella, whom I often referred to as my third child, to a coffee shop as an activity. My go-to drink for the girls was hot chocolate, but this was a summer day in Atlanta. I wanted to get them something refreshing and cold, so when I saw a frappe on the menu, I figured they would enjoy it. In the Northeast, a frappe and milkshakes were synonymous, and I instantly thought of the Fribble® of my youth.
Not being a denizen of coffee shops, but wanting to get the most value for my hard-earned money, I ordered two Venti Vanilla frappes for the three of us. (A considerably better value than ordering three smaller frappes). I was counting on the girls having appetites commensurate with their age and size, so I was excited about my pending indulgence. As I retrieved the two drinks from the counter, I took one sip and realized my plan wasn’t going to work. I don’t like the coffee flavor. I’ve never had a cup in my life - I didn’t like coffee ice cream, so it didn’t make sense for me to try it, and thus, I was cursed to a life without coffee. I watched as they each downed a Venti frappe. My strategy had backfired as the girls’ ages and sizes were now working against me. This was a significant investment, so I was cheering the girls on to finish them because there was no way we were leaving that coffee shop before every last drop of the two Venti frappes was gone.
If you look carefully, ChatGPT gave the little girl standing on the chair a third hand, attached to her knee. That hand is holding a THIRD Frappe!
Initially, I was proud of myself for completing yet another successful father/daughter outing. Those feelings were decimated the next day. My wife and Daniella’s mom were comparing notes. I wasn’t there to hear the conversation, but they both commented that Daniella and Ariel were completely wired and behaving like rabid raccoons. This was abnormal for both of them, and neither one of them could fall asleep.
That’s when the ladies got suspicious and began interrogating me (in a loving way) about the details of our coffee shop adventure. I told them, with some naivete but no defensiveness, the series of events that led to each of them drinking an entire Venti frappe. That’s when they informed me about the more common definition of a frappe: “a cold, frothy coffee beverage, typically made with instant coffee, water, sugar, and ice, and often blended or shaken to create a foamy texture.”
I accidentally overdosed my six-year-old daughter and Daniella on caffeine, and I blame the Friendly’s Fribble®. It’s like a childhood sweetheart who returned years later, overly caffeinated.
Signature Speculation:
Did you have a “third place” in your childhood that you remember fondly?
Have you had a situation in your life in which an alternative meaning of a word or a misunderstanding led to an undesired outcome?
One of my favorite Uncle Eric stories. Loved learning about the “Friendly’s history” behind the frappes.