Sweet Sips and Fair Memories at the Iowa State Fair

[Charity Nebbe] Walking into this Old Fashioned Soda Fountain will fill you with nostalgia, and that is by design. It also comes with a 50 year family fair legacy.

So, Larry, the soda fountain is a little more than 30 years old, but this is a story that goes back 50 years. How did your family get into this business?

[Larry McConnell, McConnell Concessions Inc.] Well, we were in the A&W business in Indianola, Iowa, since 1956. And we had the opportunity in 1975 to put our first stand at the Iowa State Fair. My dad says, “oh, Larry, you like that? Why don't you do it instead of me?” And he loves the fair and always wanted to do this. So really it's him that started. And then I had the first stand in ‘75 and the second one in ‘76. They were both A&Ws.

[Charity] Did you dream up the old fashioned soda fountain idea?

[Larry] Actually, I did. That used to be the pharmacy museum and at least 10 or 12 people a year went in it. And I asked the fair board if I could just take a window and do flavored Cokes. Because pharmacy and soda fountain…

[Charity] … inseparable.

[Larry] It just happened that they were moving out to Living History Farms, and said, “could you take the whole building?” And I said, “absolutely.”

[Charity] Except at first maybe it wasn't the perfect location, was it?

[Larry] Oh, no. We were up the hill. At the time, everybody in the campgrounds, which is a large population, would ride the tractors from the triangle. Well, then years later, they started dumping people off farther up the hill because there was just so much traffic down there. And then the Susan Knapp stage right behind us, when they put that in, it was like, we're part of the fair now.

[Charity] What are the most popular items that people order?

[Larry] You know, just a fountain Cherry Coke, you know, because everybody gets a Cherry Coke or Vanilla Coke now. But we actually do it from the fountain. But malts and shakes. We make our own ice cream. Make vanilla ice cream so it's soft enough so we don't add any milk or anything. You can just feel your arteries clog up. It is just good stuff.

[Charity] And it's air conditioned.

[Larry] You know, it's air conditioned. And we want you to come in and enjoy the air conditioning, but we also want you to leave so the next group can come enjoy the air conditioning.

Charity. Here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna do one of our most popular things, which is a fountain Cherry Coke.

[Charity] All right.

[Larry] All righty. We're gonna add a scoop of ice. Gonna come over and put the cherry in.

[Charity] And how many squirts?

[Larry] And you're kind of a sweet girl. Well, I don't know. That's kind of a top secret. I can't tell you everything. And add Coke. And then we're going to grab a spoon and mix it up. There you go.

[Charity] All right. Perfect.

[Larry] Very good.

[Charity] Do I get to try it?

[Larry] You? Absolutely.

[Charity] I know that's not normally what you do back here.

[Larry] No, but I think that's good. How do we do?

[Charity] That's delicious.

[Larry] All right, then, you're in. Now we're going to change uniforms and she's going to go to work. I appreciate that.

[Charity] So the whole family doesn't work in the soda fountain. What are your kids doing?

[Larry] Well, you know, my son James has bought his own stand and he has a tater ribbon stand down on Rock Island. And then my daughter and her husband bought a stand down by The Depot. It's a root beer stand and it's called Georgie's after her husband and her son.

[Charity] This is obviously an enormous amount of work and I can tell that it's a labor of love. What do you love about it?

[Larry] It's mostly the people. Two or three people have been with me for seriously 40, 50 years. And back then it was just us, you know, it's a family. I just had a 50 year celebration this winter at one of the buildings here on the fairgrounds. We had over 400 people. Just a great group of people here. I mean, this is really the cream of the crop.