Inspired by those famous lines:
“As you drive away/ a tip upon our tray/ we’re hoping to find-find-find”.
So to determine just how much coinage to leave, what base figure per person would you start with?
The thread title and the OP don’t seem to go together.
Assuming you’d typically leave 10% of what your meal cost was.
McDonald’s would be the easiest here.
For a typical McDonalds cheeseburger/fries/drink combo:
1955:
Cheeseburger - 19 cents
Fries - 10 cents (only one size, small)
Coke - 10 cents (only one size, small)
Total - 39 cents ($4.85 in 2026 dollars)
This picture, from Reddit, is of the menu from an A&W drive-in, which is the sort of restaurant that the OP seems to be talking about, where you would park your car and a carhop would bring your meal on a tray; you’d then eat in your car before leaving. The Reddit post says it was from around 1960.
A “Papa Burger,” fries, and a 16-ounce root beer would add up to $1.14.
Here we come on the run with a burger on a bun
I hate you for getting that song back in my head. I never did like that episode, even as a kid.
Famously, the retail price of Coca-Cola was fixed at five cents for a 6.5 oz glass from 1886 to 1959. Did this not apply to McDonald’s? I thought the “Nickel Coke” price referred to glasses from soda fountains in bars and restaurants, not (only) to the take-home price in grocery stores.
The A&W one must be nearer to 1970. I recall in the mid-60’s an Red Barn hamburger in Toronto was 15¢; IIRC when McD’s came to Toronto, about 1970, a cheeseburger was 35¢.
In the early 60’s a bottle of Coke went from 10¢ including deposit to 10¢ plus 2¢ deposit. And kept climbing. But those were the tiny glass bottles.
It didn’t apply to any fountain Coke in any restaurant. OTOH many sitdown restaurants (not McDonald’s) might give you a free refill.
Coffee, however, was priced at a nickel for a long, long time.
I thought the nickel coke was a particular problem because Coke had vending machines that could only take nickels, so raising the price meant a major cost (replacing all the machines).
Looks like that was part of the story, anyway
In 1950, Coca-Cola owned over 85% of the 460,000 vending machines in the United States. Based on vending machine prices at the time, Levy and Young estimated the value (in 1992 dollars) of these vending machines at between $286 million and $900 million.[3]
Because existing Coca-Cola vending machines could not reliably make change, customers needed to have exact change. The Coca-Cola company feared that requiring multiple coins (e.g., six pennies or one nickel and one penny for six-cent Coke) would reduce sales and cost money to implement, among other things.[3] Reluctant to double the price to a dime – the next price achievable with a single coin – they were forced to keep the price of Coca-Cola at five cents, or seek more creative methods.
Another A&W example, (early 70s?) seen at the History Museum on the Square in Springfield MO
Of course the OP is quoting a line from The Flintstones, so shouldn’t we be quoting Stone Age prices?
If just one size, surely it’s not a “small”. That’s just the size it came in.
TO answer the OP’s other question, standard tip on a sit-down restaurant until about the 1980’s was 10%. As for drive-ins, I don’t recall anyone every saying “leave a tip” at a fast food place. McD’s big selling point was that they did not ask for or want tips. In fact, they had uniforms with no pants pockets to discourage employees accepting tips, and it could result in firing. Still it’s their policy. In that at least they were a good corporate citizen.
I think the idea is that “small” refers to the present-day sizes. (Although Googling, the soda size back then was only seven ounces and today, even McDonald’s “extra small” size soda is ten ounces.)
Okay, so in those pre-inflation days even a family of four could eat for an amount that 10% of was often literally one coin.
Actually, I kind of wonder about the “typical” McDonald’s meal from way back. A single hamburger, fries and seven-ounce soda would be an insufficient meal for present-day Americans not on Ozempic. So did people back then eat less or was this a snack rather than a meal?
Likely more common at places with carhops like Wilma and Betty.
I think that calling an old-style drive-in with carhops a “fast food” restaurant, and comparing it to McDonald’s, is a bit of a misnomer.
Fast food was purely “counter service” back then – it wasn’t until the 1970s that McDonald’s started to install drive-thrus. Drive-ins like A&W and Dog ‘n’ Suds were burgers, hot dogs, and fries, true, but they were providing wait service (via carhops) to your car, and those A&Ws which had indoor dining were sit-down restaurants with waiters and table service.
Today in Canada a McD’s quarter pounder combo is around CAD $16! Part of the reason is an extortionate fast-food tax.