Leave it to the scientists to decide whether it was the drive-through cigar humidor, the in-car wedding ceremony or the drive-by Eastertime religious services that marked the point in human evolution where it was established that mankind didn’t really need legs.
For now, just get behind the wheel and discover the vast world of in-car services in Chicagoland and the great beyond.
In the last 30 years or so, the number of vehicles in the U.S. has grown about three times as fast as the number of humans. There’s little wonder, then, that more and more services are becoming available to help you spend money and get things done without leaving the car. Taco Bell, lite-rock radio stations, music and books on tape are all well-known beneficiaries of the trend.
That traditional favorite trio of wine, women and song is available without leaving the car. Also, cigars, cigarettes, Tiparillos. You can commune with the Lord, pick out a casket and flowers to put on top of it, then pay final respects to the dead without leaving your car.
Is this a great country or what?
The latest addition to this absurd level of convenience is the drive-through cigar humidor that opened recently in Tysons Corner, Va., outside Washington, D.C.
The cigars were the brainstorm of Chicagoan Michael Sternberg, a restaurateur who thought up the gimmick when he bought a bank building to house his second Sam & Harry’s restaurant, a popular hunk-of-red-meat-and-martini joint in the capital.
Sternberg thought it would be a good gimmick to turn the bank’s drive-through lane into a stogie stop for the busy, rich execs who populate the region.
“We’ve done as many as 30 cars a day,” said Sternberg. “I’m actually surprised that we’re doing as much business as we are.”
Most of the customers come by at rush hour to buy a cigar to enjoy on the drive home. The idea has become so popular that the variety of cigars offered at the window has gone from 10 to nearly 40 in the first two months of operation.
It wasn’t that long ago that you could pull up to a drive-through window at a bar and buy a cognac, a White Russian or a simple beer in a plastic cup to accompany that cigar.
These go-cups, however, are victims of an increased national sensitivity to drunken driving.
That said, there still are plenty of places to pick up an unopened six-pack, a fifth or a pint — with a pack of Marlboros and a couple of bags of Doritos to tide you over — without leaving the car.
Ken Daggett says he doubled his business when he opened the drive-through at his bar and liquor store, the Lost Dutchman, in Carlinville, Ill.
“Fifty percent of my business is through the window. Six-packs, 12-packs. A lot of cigarettes for people in a hurry,” he says. “In the summer they come through with a cooler. They don’t have to get out of the car. I sell the ice, they put the beer in it and away they go.”
“As business gets more competitive, you have to find your little niche,” says Daggett. “And drive-up service is ours.”
The clientele at the Lost Dutchman — mostly working people in a rush — is quite different from those most likely to use the drive-through window at the Fannie May candy shops in the Chicago suburbs.
The Chicago-based candy store chain (home of mouthwatering Pixies and the ever-popular Trinidads) has shops with drive-through windows in Midlothian and South Holland.
“The first time they use it, it’s, like, `Oh, this is so great,’ ” says Ann Laleman, manager of the Midlothian shop at 14701 S. Cicero Ave., where the in-car service appeals to mothers with sleeping kids strapped into their car seats, the elderly, the handicapped — and the lazy.
Drive-through clients are only about 5 percent of the business — more on rainy or snowy days — says Laleman, because most people want to pick out their selections piece by luscious piece, a process that does not lend itself to in-car buying.
Once those arteries are clogged with the aforementioned booze, smokes and candy, put the car on cruise control and head to one of Maynard Cheris’ three Chicago-area locations of Impressive Casket Co.
Here you can select a final resting place from the comfort of your auto by driving by plate-glass windows where “our product is displayed and identified pricewise and stylewise,” says Cheris. Also on display are floral funeral tributes in baskets and in the shape of hearts, crosses and the like.
Cheris says his drive-through business (with sites in Chicago, Oak Forest and Allis, Wis.) was made possible by a 1994 federal regulation change that says funeral homes can no longer charge additional fees if you buy the casket from a consumer-direct discounter that delivers it to the mortuary of your choice.
The drive-through showroom, says Cheris, lets customers “make their selections without anyone looking over their shoulder.” And business is booming, he says, as word spreads that you can save money on a casket by selecting the model you want, then ordering over the phone for delivery to the funeral home.
One minor snag occurred when he set up a shop in a semi-residential area in Sauganash on Chicago’s Northwest Side. “The neighbors were upset, and we don’t need the hostility. They felt it was inappropriate. Maybe they were right. We moved it.”
Once the loved one is placed in the casket — discount or otherwise — it is possible to drive through a South Side funeral home and “pay your respects” without hopping out of the car.
The in-car visitation at Gatling’s Chapel, 10133 S. Halsted St., was introduced as a convenience to spare mourners the trouble of going home and cleaning up after a long workday.
“You go home, have dinner, fall asleep and you’re going to miss your best friend’s funeral,” says owner Lafayette Gatling.
So, on request, he will aim a video camera on the casket — he can do three caskets at a time — and show the deceased live (so to speak) on color TV monitors at the drive-through. You also can sign the register book to prove you were there without having to make small talk with the bereaved.
At first, when Gatling dreamed up this novel scheme some 14 years ago, two out of every five families chose this convenience. Now, because business has increased dramatically for more traditional funerals, he can offer the drive-through only between midnight and 6 a.m. Perfect for night-shift mourners.
A planned satellite funeral home in south suburban Country Club Hills, says Gatling, will offer a state-of-the-art drive-through visitation plan. Stay tuned.
If you’re looking for something a little more permanent in a relationship than what actor Hugh Grant found in his vehicle, look no farther than “the world famous drive-up wedding window.”
That description is offered by Joanie Richards, operations manager of Las Vegas’ Little White Wedding Chapel, a pioneer in drive-through weddings. Conveniently located on Las Vegas Blvd., the drive-through has recently been reconfigured as the “Tunnel of Love” and is a big hit, she says. “There’s always a line. People pulling up one right after another” for a $25 wedding that takes between five and six minutes.
And if you wake up with a hangover and a husband and want to take about the same amount of time to undo this love match, just drive on up to Salem, Ore., where attorney Robert Nordyke will work up your divorce and have it waiting at what was once a bank’s drive-up window and is now his law offices.
“It’s really more of a publicity ploy. The percentage of my clients that use it is very, very small because you’d have to be a complete idiot to run your personal life through a window,” Nordyke says.
You could make a vacation trip out of that divorce by detouring to the Drive Through Art Gallery in Salt Lake City, which — like the Virginia cigar shop and the divorce law offices — is built in a former bank drive-through lane.
In this case, gallery owner Don Brady modified the window so that it is now 13 feet high and 90 feet long, for maximum viewing pleasure. All the art, as you might have guessed, is for sale.
“It hasn’t really been successful as far as sales,” Brady says, “but we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people who say it’s really wonderful. . . . As far as sales go, I think you need the human touch.”
With the no-admission-fee displays changing every few months, Brady says a lot of busy citizens are being exposed to the beauty of art on their own schedules, even at night, since the gallery window is illuminated around the clock.
As in the pursuit of the aesthetic, “people in their spiritual journeys are looking for ways and places to be comfortable,” according to Rev. Stephen Gentle, describing what he calls “quite a unique ministry.”
He is talking about the in-your-car worship services offered every Sunday at the Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Orlando.
People bring their pets, their kids, their infirm relatives, park in the lot, dial 820 on their AM dial and tune in to 45 minutes of church service on their car radios. Volunteers go car-to-car to distribute communion and to pass the collection plate.
The in-car worship began in November 1952 in an old drive-in movie theater in Winter Park, Fla., but moved to its downtown location some 28 years ago. Gentle believes the outdoor service has reached 420,000 worshippers in its 45 years and is the nation’s “oldest continuing drive-in worship service.”
A new tradition began last year, says Gentle, with the drive-by Stations of the Cross, for which about 50 costumed volunteers portrayed scenes from the final days of Jesus’ life for worshipers in their cars on Good Friday evening.
“There’s some livestock — a donkey at the Palm Sunday — and the crucifixion scene is down on our lakefront. And there’s the Last Supper with the disciples and Jesus at the table,” says Gentle. “There’s been a tremendous response.”
Closer to Chicago, in Belleville, Ill., the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows invites visitors to stay in their cars to pray at the 14 Stations of the Cross. These don’t have livestock, but the outdoor prayer sites are open all year long, not just on Good Friday.
And for those who still haven’t gotten over the fact that doctors don’t make house calls, an enterprising physician in suburban Detroit is offering the next best thing: in-car flu shots.
For the flu innoculations, “You don’t have to get out of your car. You don’t have to wait for the doctor. You don’t have to make an appointment. You pay your money, sign a form, get your shot and leave,” says Dr. M. George, owner and medical director of the Royal Oak Medical Center in Royal Oak, Mich.
The service has more than doubled the flu shot business at the clinic to 500, he says.
George says that although there probably are other doctor services he could offer to patients who want to stay in their cars, “I haven’t sat down to think about them.”
And even for those who have acquired a genuine stay-in-the-car compusion, medical science has a long way to go before bathroom breaks become a thing of the past.
