Lots of times, mostly back in the 50s. Sometimes my mother would take me shopping downtown (there were no departments stores in the 'burbs then). We’d often have lunch at either a department store luncheonette or a Woolworth lunch counter (great BLTs). And also, there was a Walgreens across from the dentist’s office, so after my appointment we’d have lunch at the counter. My favorite thing was Cherry Coke . . . REAL Coke with REAL cherry syrup.
Worked at one in Detroit , they made me fill in at the counter once. It was always busy.
Woolworth’s in Anchorage, AK in the 60s. We also had a Rexall Drugs with a lunch counter. We used to go in there after school and order a “Zombie”, which was a shot of every flavoring syrup they had, plus soda water. We felt very macho and grown up, and assured each other that it didn’t really taste like shit. 
W.T. Grants, right smack dab in the middle of dahntahn Pittsburgh. Awesome hot dogs.
We have a local pharmacy that has a soda fountain. The place makes the best ice cream EVAR! They are much better know for thier ice cream than for being a pharmacy.
We also had a pretty famous Tea Room in the flagship Yonkers department store downtown. The place was a local landmark. It closed when the department store downsized, because the building was so old and falling out of code while the shopping in town had long ago moved to the malls. It was in the process of being renovated and was going to reopen when the entire build burned down a few weeks ago.
Woolworth’s, downtown Chicago, back in the 70’s (shopping with Mom and Grandma). I most likely had a grilled cheese or a hot dog. I don’t remember.
The U of I Corner Store, corner of Green and Wright, Champaign, Illinois circa 1980. Even then it seemed like a relic from a different age. Hot turkey sandwiches and phosphates–good stuff!
Funny things stick in your mind. One day I asked what was the weird TV channel they were watching that showed news all the time. That was how I learned of the existence of CNN.
Quite a few different dime stores and department stores in the 60s to mid 70s. And a lot of independent drug stores. Some of the food was terrific; among the best I remember. The “Greene’s” in McKeesport had a fried chicken that is still my benchmark for everyone else’s. And Cook’s Drugs (Kingston PA) could make a burger so good that none of the regular fast food franchises made it into the Wyoming Valley until well after Agnes.
What surprises me in looking back is how extensive/large some of their menus were considering the tiny size of the seating and kitchen
My small hometown in Ohio had a drugstore with a lunch counter that was totally packed with high school students every day back in the early 60’s. We almost wore a path out the front of the high school, run across the middle of the street, cross a parking lot, enter the lower floor of the dimestore, up the stairs to the first level and out the door, run across another street and try to find standing room. One of the favorites was the cheeseburger with doubleburger sauce. Or a local tradition – breaded pork tenderloin that was usually quite a bit bigger than the bun on which it was served. And a cherry coke that could be had for a nickel or a dime. Good times.
When visiting in New Jersey I got a meal from Wegman’s and ate it in their dining floor. They had a few options (sandwiches, pizza). I think I saw a Publix some years ago with tables and chairs to have your deli meals. I didn’t eat anything there, but a mall in Berlin had a floor devoted to restaurants and food products. I just bought the Mozart candy.
Back in the dark ages when I was the U of I (not that much before your time), that was a Rexall’s. I think I ate there once, and whenever someone mentions “drugstore with a lunch counter” I think of Rexall’s at Green and Wright.
Yeah, the Rexall brand pretty much fell off a cliff in the 1970’s, and by the time I got there in 1977 the Corner Store had gone independent.
Fast forward to current, my local Sam’s Club has a food court of sorts. A row of soda/pop dispensers with free refills, and one can get pretzels, pizza, hot dogs, nachos, and other nibblers, mostly fresh-ish. At least it’s heated up before your eyes. Several tables and chairs. Just beyond the check out stands.
Not a McD in the store, like Walmart does, this is branded as Sam’s.
Really cheap, too. A 32oz drink and a pretzel are something like $1.79 or so.
One of my sisters started pre-med at U of I around the same time. I remember visting her apartment for a few days and we may have eaten at the Corner Store.
Back in 1970’s Sandy Eggo, we called that drink a ‘suicide’ and all the flavors basically ran together. I think it was more about the sugar rush than the flavor anyway.
I vaguely recall an Newberrys (sp?) and a Woolworth’s in the mall on the hill. [Or maybe the former got bought & renamed by the latter, but it seemed to me they carried the same stuff.] They (both?) had an area with a counter and a few tables & chairs that was kind of like a mini diner. I didn’t understand why my mother wouldn’t let us sit at the counter. BLT’s or Grilled Cheese with potato chips and a shake.
It seems worth noting that the fountain/counters at the pharmacies preceded the dinettes in the department stores (Woolworth’s was a department store? Seems like a thrift store now-a-days) weren’t. The pharmacies/drug stores/corner we-carry-everything stores had the soda fountains because the coca, sasparilla, pepsi, and other syrups-added-to-sodas were considered medicinal. When the sale of soda-and-syrup concoctions was banned (during Prohibition?) on the Sabbath, the pharmacies turned to selling iced-cream-and-syrup as an alternative – the Sunday special. Eventually, there was protest against commercializing the treat and the holy day, so the name was respelled: sundae. Some companies even dropped the store/pharmacy/diner portion and just became ice cream parlors – Farrell’s, Swenson’s, Dairy Queen, and Foster’s [Freeze] come to mind – with grills to serve food with the fun stuff.
–G!
As a kid in the 1980s, I’d often dine with my great-grandmother at the K-Mart cafeteria. I don’t remember a thing about the food, but I thought the whole idea was neat.
These days, I love nothing better than to grab Swedish meatballs and apple pie at Ikea.
Yes, Nordstrom still has restaurants in addition to coffee stands/counters. I think it isn’t much fancier than the restaurants at department stores back in the day when compared with places like fast food, but I guess it’s not exactly a lunch counter. I just consider it a modern version of the lunch counter since most people don’t want to eat at a counter.
Ikea and Target also currently have the modern version of lunch counters in their stores, at least around here they do.
That’s also what we called them at the skating rink snack bar (late 70s-early 80s.)
A true lunch counter either had a long line of stoolsor else little half chairs perched on stalks. The latter seems to be more common from the pictures I can find. Smaller places, like drugstores, may have had more stools. Here’s a picture of the u-shaped counter I mentioned. That really packs them in.
Nothing today has the look or feel of those old shots, except for a few retro diners and those are way too small to get the sense of the endless scope and number of bodies.
Wow, I’ve never eaten at one so big.