Wow, SHAKEY’S. That was THE place to go to in Barstow when I was a kid back in the late 60’s & early 70’s. Well, it was because it was the ONLY place in Barstow to go as a kid. Unless you were a kid who liked branch & Bourbon. My family went there quite a bit, but I didn’t eat much pizza there after a food poisoning incident. I ate quite a few meatball sandwiches, though.
The place closed in '81 (now I know why) and is now a locally-run mediocre pizza place instead of a mediocre chain pizza place. There was one open in Daly City, and when I spotted it I got all excited & nostalgic and dragged my partner in there. It was empty, squalid, none-too-clean and had one of those vibes that made you consider not just walking out the door, but bolting as fast as possible.
It was demolished soon after that, and probably exorcised for good measure, too.
My last visit to Shakey’s was in Olongopo City, Philippines in 78-79. I had been to Shakey’s in my then home town (Wichita Falls, TX) many times, but the Shakey’s in Olongopo was a surreal experience. Imagine a barbershop quartet doing all the traditional songs in a heavy Filipino accent; “Way down along the Swanee Liver …” The pizza was pretty good, but no one with me could identify any of the meats used in the toppings. Bizarre fun.
Shakey’s is a chain? Wow. There’s one here in Riverside, and I was convinced it was a one-shot deal. It just looks like such a hole in the wall, and they have these crappy TV ads that just scream “homemade ad with barely enough of a budget to rent a camera from Rent-A-Center”.
Shakey’s was the first real pizza I ever had, when I went to a birthday party for a friend there when I was in the 4th grade. Before that, the only pizza I’d had was those square things they served at school, or the frozen cardboard known as Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee frozen pizzas. Up until then, I never thought I liked pizza.
Once I had the real thing, though, my opinion changed.
(For the record, this was the Shakey’s on Independence Blvd in Charlotte, NC.) I enjoyed the Farrell’s in Eastland Mall, there, too.
There were three pizza places I’d be taken to when I was a kid in San Diego. Organ Power Pizza had a real pip organ at the end of the dining hall, and animated ‘trophy heads’ mounted on the walls. I’d always ask the organist to play Tocatta & Fugue in D Minor. Fillipi’s Pizza Grotto was and is a ‘real’ restaurant. The pizza was more suited to the adult palate, but I liked it. We went there when the grown-ups wanted pizza.
And then there was Shakey’s. It was on Balboa, IIRC; but I could be wrong. They didn’t have video games when I was a kid, but they did have the projector. Laurel & Hardey silents were fun, and they also showed cartoons. Chilly Willy, Woody Woodpecker, Deputy Dawg… And the pizza was good. After I left San Diego, I never had Shakey’s pizza again. Instead, I went to Round Table. My friends and I would cruise Lancaster Blvd. on weekend nights after having shared pizza at Round Table washed down with a pitcher of San Miguel Dark. (It was a little dicey getting the beer when we were underage, but we pulled it off a few times. Later, we got it legally.)
I remember a couple of Shakey’s restaurants in OKC when I was a kid. I was hooked on Nomad’s (an OKC landmark for pizza) as a youngster and didn’t care that much for the pizza at Shakey’s. The last time I ate at one (1987 or 1988) it was not good. I went for the lunch buffet and should have turned around and walked out. When I got back from a tour in Germany, the restaurant had been turned into a pool supply store. I think it’s a used car lot now (NW39th & Ann Arbor)
The Sausage Creature will have to be excused. She was born in 1981, and does not remember when Shakey’s was good. Mmmm…mojo potatoes…mmm. And I played my first ever game of Pong there. What a marvel!
Shakey’s in Grand Junction, Colorado was the first and for the longest time only pizza place in Western Colorado. Teens would travel hundreds of miles to eat a pizza there (I lived 60 miles away). I met the first great love of my life there.
There’s a local chain in the Vancouver BC area (three stores, I think) that has the same window/bench combo, and a back room for birthdays. I never noticed any piano or movies, but never made it to the back room. The name is officially “Me 'n Ed’s” but the quality of the pizza led me to start calling it “Mr. Ed’s.” (He was the main ingredient.) The only reason I ever went there was that they have beer on tap, while the good place, Mr. Classico (half a dozen blocks the other way, on Edmonds Street in Burnaby) only does delivery or take-out.
Growing up, I lived just down the street from that one. And the all you can eat buffet was the draw for me and my friends.
I also remember one of my teachers at MJHS took us Drama kids there after a performance, where I remember sneaking off with one of the girls to the bowling alley for some smooching.
I got to go once. Ames, IA, out on West Lincolnway. I must have been about four (1971?). I don’t remember a thing but the glow-in-the-dark player piano.
Shortly thereafter mom & dad discovered a little place called The Pizza House that served fantastic thin-crust. They went there until 20 years later, when it closed.
Loved the Shakey’s in Visalia, CA in the 80’s. Our marching band would gather after games and parades and the pizza was terrific. There might be one in Fresno, but the Visalia one is gone.
Huh, how 'bout that. My sister was born in Eugene and I lived in Springfield, OR while my dad did his tour in Vietnam. There was some other pizza place in Eugene, right on the river, that we were always taken to. I can’t for the life of me, remember the name of it, but was thrilled when one opened up around here (this was years ago). It was a huge disappointment.
The thing I remember most about Shakey’s pizza was that the crust had a beer like flavor to it. It tasted good to me. Back in about 1989 or 90 my husband and I went to a Shakey’s down in Hazel Dell, WA. The company he works for had a terminal down there at the time and I had to drop him off or pick him up (I don’t remember for sure). At any rate, the Shakey’s down there was a real hole in the wall, really dirty, and we wanted bolt too.
When I first arrive in Japan in 1991, there were still very few western chain stores in Hokkaido.
There was however, a Shakey’s, with an all you can eat deal on Friday and Saturday lunchtimes. We’d go as a bunch, and you could always be guaranteed to meet a few foreigners there, which was refreshing, as there were not so many of them back then, either.
Some of the pizza toppings were decidedly bizzarre though, like squid and seaweed, or potato and mayonnaise.
It seems fortunate that I remember Shakey’s from it’s glory days in my childhood, and have never experienced the disappointment of it’s current reality. I saw one when I was in California, and went “Hey, Shakey’s Pizza!” Never went in, though.
In Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1977 the Shakey’s had a SpaceWar game, and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I remember the benches where you could watch the pizza makers, and the player piano was working once or twice that I recall.