By Barbara ScottStaff Writer
It’s summer time, let’s take a trip but first let’s get something to eat. No, wait, the trip is down memory lane — back to the 1960s and early 70s – to SESME CARHOP. Owned and operated by Ronald (Ronnie) Smith, SESME CARHOP in Caribou was the place to be and to work if you were in high school. It was where families went out for a special treat or a meal on Sunday afternoons, it was where one, as a teenager, went and pulled up in front if you were dating someone new and wanted everyone to see you, it was where you pulled up in the back row if you were just out for the evening alone and nursing a broken heart, it was the yard you drove through when out ‘dragging main street’ on Friday or Saturday night, it was the place to be, to see all your friends, to be seen.
The menu at SESME wasn’t just burgers and shakes, a popular menu item was the SESME Special. This was a handmade Italian sandwich, on regular sliced bread, usually wheat unless specified, with salami slices, cheese, onions and green peppers —would you like mayo or mustard? The SESME Special wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary but somehow it tasted much better delivered by your carhop than if one had stayed at home and made it yourself.
Other menu items included, the regular burgers, hotdogs, whistle dogs( hotdogs wrapped in bacon) tenderloin clams, french fries of course, but not real thin ones; pizza burgers that weighed about a pound, the SESME Burger (a mouth-watering delight) and the absolute best onion rings ever served in a basket and delivered to your vehicle.
SESME also offered ‘real’ ice cream in cones or dishes, humungous banana splits, real milk shakes( vanilla, chocolate, coffee or strawberry) and Boston Coolers (orange sherbet and sprite blended on the shake machine). Other soft drinks included coke, 7-UP or sprite, root beer, orange and ready for this? —Bubble-UP! Many of the local teenagers sitting in their vehicles, way up in the very back row, would turn on their lights for service and once their carhop arrived would order a small cherry Bubble-up or perhaps a cherry coke. These drink concoctions were prepared by filling the waxy paper cup with coke or bubble up, then adding a squirt of cherry from the sundae fountain ( another favorite was vanilla Bubble-Up).
Ronnie Smith ran a very tight ship at SESME CARHOP, the kitchen was spotless, the food prepared to perfection and fast service was a must. He was also probably the best person in the world to work for, this coming from someone who carhopped for four years — that’s a lot of trips back and forth through the pitched parking lot at SESME.
One didn’t just decide to work at SESME, one contacted Mr. Smith early in the spring and waited anxiously for his phone call saying he would be interviewing on a certain date. The interview wasn’t very stressful, unless you were 16 and wanted more than anything to be a carhop at SESME. Actually the interview was to see how easily one was able to carry on a conversation and how seriously one was about having a job (this wasn’t a place where you just stood by a car and talked) and most of all if we were able to work the hours that could be expected.
The interview was a success if you left carrying a brand new uniform. Every year Ronnie (with a great deal of input from his wife Doris, I’m sure) purchased very stylish outfits for all of the carhops to wear. These were always an ensemble made up of either pants, shirt, jacket and skirt or ‘culottes’ that allowed for a change every now and then depending on the weather. However, if four carhops came to work wearing the culottes and one came sporting pants, she changed — it’s not called a uniform for nothing.
One year the uniforms were dark navy with large red polka dots. This particular ensemble included, one-piece culottes, pants, jacket and — a hat. The hat was a source of great discussion during the first few days of the season due mainly to the fact that they had a rather high crown and every time there was a sizeable gust of wind we were all chasing down our chapeaus. The other problem with the hats appeared later in the season when, because of working in the rain or the necessity to wash them, caused the crowns to become rather limp, no amount of starch would fix the problem. Any number of solutions were applied but the funniest one (not necessarily the most successful) came about when one of the carhops patiently filled the inside of the hat with toilet paper. This did do the trick, given she had used nearly a whole roll, but as she was carrying a full tray of food and drinks to a customer’s car, out of nowhere came a stiff breeze and well — you can picture the rest of that story.
Being a carhop at SESME was the best job and parents were very comfortable with the idea. Mainly because Ronnie picked his crew up at the high school after school and delivered us home after work. No one was taken home by their boyfriends or anyone else. If your boyfriend happened to be there when Ronnie dropped you off, well, after a few questions, you were on your own. One didn’t play games because you just knew that Ronnie and your parents were in constant communications and one way or the other everyone knew what time you went home and who took you there.
The art of carhopping isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. Although we didn’t wear roller skates (thank goodness) balancing those trays filled with food and drinks took some concentration and taking orders was another thing altogether.
When customers would drive into the yard at SESME, all of the carhops were lined up on the bench in front of the counter or standing by the door. Once you got the hang of the way things worked, you would say, “my car,” then watch where it parked, waited for the headlights to come on and away you’d go. Of course to be fair, we did take turns waiting on the vehicles but after a while you also recognized who really tipped well and which ones always found a problem with their order.
Once at the vehicle, with your order pad and pen in hand you stated, “ Hi, can I help you,” then proceeded to take orders, written in abbreviations which had to be legible and correct. Once the order was taken, the driver would shut off his headlights and you proceeded to give the order slip to the counterperson( who wore white uniforms) who in turn saw that it was handed through the window to the kitchen.
When the orders were completed, your name would be called and you quickly checked to make sure everything that was supposed to be there was and then carried it out to the vehicle. Then came the tricky part. The trays were constructed with a lip along one side as well as two brackets that secured the tray when placed on a car window rolled up about a quarter of the way, which the lip fit down over. The tricky part was when a customer hadn’t adjusted the window properly, so when the tray was attached, it tipped forward, allowing most of the drinks to end up in the closest lap.
When a customer was through with their order or needed something else, usually more napkins, they would flash their headlights and you would once again go to that spot, ask if everything had been okay and then try to secure all the paper products with one hand and return the tray inside. Before bringing the tray inside, carhops dumped the trash from them into one of several large barrels that sat in front of the building. The worse part about those barrels was when you tipped the tray over and heard your tip clinking off the sides – either you went after it or you left it there.
To make things run smoother and quicker, carhops wore money banks filled with change so when you brought an order to the vehicle you had their slip, they paid you at that time and you in turn made change for them unless they gave you a large bill. One of the fastest lessons a carhop usually learns is how to make the correct change from the money bank. That bank started out with a certain amount of money in it and at the end of the night you had to make sure it ended with the same. You used from your tip dish to fill up the change in your bank and hopefully you had made the correct change all during your work hours so you didn’t find yourself putting all of what you thought was tips, back into the bank.
Carhopping at SESME was fun, anyone who ever worked there would agree there wasn’t anything like working for Ronnie Smith, having the parking lot full of cars on a mild summer evening, the juke box playing your favorite tunes (three songs for a quarter) and seeing the guy you really wanted to date, show up without his girlfriend sitting close to his side.
