Hamburgers and Cinnamon Doughnuts - Those Winky's Days

The other day someone asked me about my very first job.  With a wave of nostalgia I proudly responded, “When I was a teenager I worked at Winky's Drive-In Restaurant in Swissvale.”

The late, great Winky’s was a plucky little player in the Western Pennsylvania fast food world for 20 shining years from 1962 to 1982.   Winky’s strategy for success was all about diversification.  In an era when McDonald’s did hamburgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken did fried chicken, and Arby’s did roast beef, Winky’s did it all. Their claim to fame was that they breaded the fresh chicken and cooked it in a deep fryer, and sliced the roast beef themselves.  However, the piéce de resistance of Winky's menu was definitely the made-from-scratch cinnamon doughnut, and the milkshakes were pretty great too.

I started at Winky's when I was a junior in high school.  Inexplicably they kept me on after my first day on the job when I splattered the first four milkshakes I attempted to make all over the counter and the walls, but what I lacked in coordination I made up for with my eager and pleasant customer service and the fact that I could be relied upon to show up for work when I was scheduled to do so.  My stock rose even more when I turned 18, which made me eligible to “work the machines” – that is, slice the roast beef, work the deep fryer, and make the all-important doughnuts.  Believe or not, I managed to learn to do all of this without serious injuring myself, and I stayed for the next seven years returning every summer when I was in college.

While the company slogan “Winky's Makes You Happy to Be Hungry” was probably an overstatement Winky's definitely made me happy to be a teenager with a part-time job.  I absolutely loved working there. 

I was making a little money of my own for the first time in my life.  I religiously put half my earnings in the bank for college and used the rest for spending money that was all my own.  After nearly two years the money I had saved paid for one semester of college, but hey, it was something.

I met people I didn’t already know at Winky's.  This may sound strange, but I had attended St. Anselm’s from the time I entered kindergarten, and most of the people I knew I had known essentially all my life.  I met kids who attended Swissvale High School at Winky's and some of them weren’t even Catholic, if you can believe it.

I learned about maintaining a good work ethic at Winky's.  For a couple of summers I was routinely scheduled to do weekend prep at the restaurant, which means I arrived at 4 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and worked there alone making the all-important doughnuts and preparing other food from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. until the restaurant opened and some co-workers (including the shift manager) arrived.

My father did not think it was safe for a 19-year-old girl to be at the restaurant by herself at those hours because it wasn’t.  Refusing a shift on your job wasn’t an option, so every Saturday and Sunday after working all week Dad got up at 3:30 a.m. to drive me to Winky's and stayed there with me until the restaurant opened, telling me stories of his life and drinking coffee while I worked.   He wouldn’t let me complain about getting up so early (“This is your job!”) and he never complained either.

It was more than just work, though. Winky's became a place where I socialized.  I’m not sure why my co-workers and had so much fun serving fast food together, but we did.  I made friends there and we had all kinds of adventures together, in and out of work. Of course, I was scheduled to work every weekend either in the evening or starting at 4 a.m. for seven of my teenage years, so if I didn’t socialize at work I wouldn’t have socialized at all.