Made in Oklahoma: Ballard's Drive-In

Published: November 26, 2008

About

• Address: 100 Ballard Road in Pauls Valley.

• Founded: Sept. 1, 1951.

• Employees: Three.

• Key personnel: Johnny Ballard, founder and owner; Dixie Williams and Brenda Sherrill.

• Specialties: Rex chicken baskets, limeades and peanut butter shakes.

Background

Folks always ask Johnny Ballard of Ballard’s Drive-In in Pauls Valley when he’s going to retire. His answer, technically a question, is the same: "If I retire, when would I see you?” Customers energize Ballard, who at 87 opens up, helps cook and hops cars. He doesn’t play golf, fish or hunt. Instead, he visits with people. "We have a lot of repeat business, especially all the traveling people,” Ballard said. Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas, Ballard’s parallels the east side of Interstate-35. A B24 pilot in WWII, Ballard worked three years in his family’s grocery business before buying the drive-in, a former Dairy Queen, in 1951. His 57-year-old drive-in draws as many as 250 customers a day, he said. "People come from all over for our milkshakes and malts,” Ballard said. "We had one guy who’d drive down and back from the city every Saturday for a super giant peanut butter shake. True story. He’d come in around 11 a.m. You could almost set your clock by him.” Other times, busloads of teenagers on their way home from Falls Creek Baptist camp in Davis, stop in for malts or extra-large cherry limeades. Or, businessmen traveling from Wichita to Dallas stop for a $2.59 burger or $5.89 Rex chicken basket with bite-sized pieces of breast meat, slaw, toast, and French fries, tater tots or onion rings. "We have a tremendous variety of things,” Ballard said. The menu includes chicken fried and popcorn shrimp dinners, and 21 different sandwiches and coneys. A McDonald’s is a few blocks south of the drive-in, but Ballard maintains business to his famous drive-in hasn‘t dropped off. "We’re not hurt by them,” he said.

PAULA BURKES, BUSINESS WRITER

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