Nickel Sundaes in Tallahassee

In the early 1980s, I never paid more than 5 cents for an ice cream sundae.

Steve's Ice Cream was on Highway 90, West Tennessee Street, across from two well-known college bars of the day, Poor Paul's Pourhouse and Bullwinkle's Saloon. Both are still open, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I won Bullwinkle's Halloween costume contest late Sunday night, October 31, 2010.

In the Fall of 1980, that particular stretch of highway was the scene of the once infamous Florida State University football "street stomps" that occurred two Saturday nights, on October 4th and 11th, immediately following unlikely consecutive away game victories against top ranked opponents Nebraska (7) and Pittsburgh (2). Jubilant fans spontaneously spilled out of the bars and onto the street and blocked traffic for hours. I was working at Mr. G's Pizza East on both nights to witness these events. The view through the front glass window of Mr. G's was completely obscured by the uproarious celebrants, reminding me of the denizens of the overpopulated planet of Gideon on Star Trek episode 71, 1969. All pizza deliveries were delayed, just in leaving Mr. G's.

In what would become an anticlimactic and spendthrift application of local justice, law enforcement vowed to prevent future such spectacles by arresting all jaywalkers. They would be ready next Saturday night, October 18. I was working again that night, listening to the game on the radio, and with a few minutes left in the game that we won by 34 points against unranked Boston College, I watched hundreds of stern-faced deputies line both sides of Tennessee Street to prevent lawlessness in Tallahassee.  

Not realizing that for away games, the fans go to bars to watch games on television, and for home games, they actually attend the games, police and deputies heavily deployed a little more than a mile north and east of where the real action was, a home game at Florida State University's Doak Campbell Stadium. We all had a laugh and enjoyed the first quiet Saturday night on West Tennessee Street in three weeks. Pizza deliveries were on time.

On to nickel sundaes.

Starbucks was still years away. Tallahassee was into ice cream, and Steve's Ice Cream did a lot of business. Steve's Ice Cream was no drive-through Photomat ice cream stand. Steve's was a pioneer of "mix-in" ice cream, the business model for Cold Stone Creamery of today. It had table service on some evenings, and at the back of the large dining room on a dais there was an upright piano that was visible from the street. A sign above the piano read, "Tickle your fingers." A single scoop of ice cream sold for $1.99, and successive scoops cost marginally less than the first scoop. A regular ice cream sundae cost over $3.00.

Gas was just over $1 a gallon. Candy bars had recently risen to 30 cents. Milk was 99 cents a gallon at Pantry Pride grocery stores. Ground beef was 99 cents a pound, sometimes less for quantities of three pounds or more. It cost a nickel to make a phone call. I had to travel at least 3 miles to use a public-access computer and there was no Internet.

Just outside Steve's Ice Cream on the sidewalk was what passed for a phone booth in those days, a metal stand with a typical pay phone attached to metal backing open to the weather with a conspicuous hanging chain that at one time held a telephone directory. By then the pay phone as a coin-operated communications device had been around almost a hundred years, having first been invented and installed by William Gray in a bank in Hartford, Connecticut in 1889.

Just inside Steve's and visible from the sidewalk was a medium sized chalkboard that read "Answer this question & win a free sundae." Listed below was the trivia question of the week, and of them all, I can only remember two: "Who invented the transistor?" and "Who was 'M' in James Bond movies?"

William Shockley and Admiral Miles Messervy, respectively.

Steve's Ice Cream staff came to recognize me, as I only entered the store to win a free sundae, but I don't think they ever learned I wasn't as knowledgeable as I seemed. I would look inside their front window and read the trivia question, then put a nickel in the pay phone and call the Leon County Public Library and ask them: (850) 487-2665.

Years later in 1989, I dressed up as Tweety Bird, and Dave the Cat and I led the Children's Story Book Character parade at the dedication of the new Leroy Collins Leon County Public Library in downtown Tallahassee.



 

Photos courtesy of photographer Mary Jane Martinez, married to Florida Governor Bob Martinez