Thursday, July 2, 2009
Lost Memphis The Tropical Freeze
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 12:39 PM
Even my team of psychiatrists has a hard time explaining my obsession with the Tropical Freeze, the frozen custard joint that stood at the southwest corner of Poplar and White Station in the 1960s. It was quite a place, with a thatched roof, a miniature dancing hula girl in the window, great neon signs, a shell-lined fountain in the parking lot, and a cluster of fake palm trees on the roof, illuminated by colored spotlights. A Starbucks stands on the site today.
And yet, I have never found a decent photograph of such an unusual business. Some years ago, I managed to find a nice color image of a group of White Station students sitting in their cars in the Tropical Freeze parking lot. That showed the fountain pretty well, but the photographer was aiming his camera away from the building itself, so that's all you saw.
More recently, I've pored over, under, and through other yearbooks, and managed to turn up a few other images. One of them (above) shows a group of White Station students in 1960, standing on the roof of the Tropical Freeze. That would be Poplar in the background. It's so frustrating that so little of the building is shown — just the trunks of the fake palm trees, and — barely visible behind the fellow on the right — a portion of the neon sign.
And below is a really cool photo of the TF at night. See what I mean about the cool neon? I think this came from a St. Agnes yearbook, or maybe it was Hutchison; I just can't remember. It's hard to tell, but the girls seem to be standing on a low wall that would have run along Poplar. Or maybe it's just the sidewalk. This would have been a great image if: 1) it was in color, and 2) the photographer had bothered to FOCUS HIS CAMERA. Good grief!
So my quest continues. Look through your yearbooks, photo albums, and scrapbooks, everyone. Surely there is a photo of the Tropical Freeze — somewhere.
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When did Pancho's Taco get built on that spot (which is what the building Starbucks currently occupies used to be)? 'Cause that's all I can remember being there (granted, my memory only goes back to when I was 4 or 5 - about '72-'73).
At the moment, I'm far away from my research library, so can't provide you with an exact chronology, but after the Tropical Freeze building was torn down (assuming that it WAS, and not just converted into something else), the next eatery to occupy that corner was Roy Rogers Roast Beef. After that came Danver's (though some people believe it was Danver's — and not Roy Rogers — that followed the Tropical Freeze). Anyway, sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Pancho's moved into the building. Starbucks has it for the time being. To date, I have dined at that corner in every business that has stood there.
I remember eating at Shoney's Big Boy and walking over to the Tropical Freeze with my parents. My older brother who graduated from Overton High spent many a dollar on me there when he was hangin out with the guys.
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