The workers at Don’s Pharmacy and Soda Fountain aren’t afraid to share the secret to their tasty milkshakes, voted best in Port Townsend.
“We use hard ice cream,” said Gina Landon, who works at Don’s. “We do it the old fashioned way.”
Real ice cream, a touch of extra flavoring, a dollop of whipped cream and there you have it: the Readers Choice contest’s best milkshake.
Seems simple, right?
Sweet, thick, icy and creamy, the milkshakes at Don’s are worth making the trip through the aisles of the pharmacy store to the back corner, where tucked behind the cards and gift wrap aisle is the old fashioned soda fountain.
But even better than the milkshakes is the company: counters with old-style twirling seats create an open environment where the waitresses—some who have worked there for 20 years—wind their way through the maze of customers to ask for orders and tease the regulars.
“It’s a gathering place—one that’s conducive to making friends,” said Nancy Peterson, a regular at Don’s.” Everyone here is of good humour.”
Locals have been going to Don’s for generations and generations, Landon said, naming regulars whose parents and grandparents used to come to Don’s. The pharmacy and soda fountain has been around for 58 years.
The business was started by Don Hoglund Sr., who bought Baker Drug from Harry Baker back in 1961. Back then, it was located where The Clothes Horse is located now, at 910 Water Street.
According to Don Hoglund Jr., who took over the business with his mother at the age of 24 when his father died suddenly, the soda fountain today has many of the original parts from the soda fountain that was at Baker Drug.
“My father moved many of the parts from the original fountain when we relocated to where we are now,” Hoglund said.
Hoglund suspects the parts for the soda fountain date back to the 1940s.
“A food service in a general retail store is quite unique,” he said. “You just don’t see it as much anymore.”
There’s not a lot of turnover at the family-owned business. Lois Black, a waitress at Don’s, worked there until she was 87. Sam Johnson has worked as a waitress there for 20 years now.
“She knows everybody,” Landon said. “People come here just for her.”
That isn’t to say the service is always “with a smile.” At Don’s you can get what Peterson calls “sandwiches and sarcasm.”
“It’s the most loving abuse you’ve ever gotten,” Peterson said.
The waitresses will tease their regulars, who can give as good as they get. Some come in once or twice a week and sit in the same exact spot—their orders have been memorized by the entire staff.
“We have some locals who come down every day,” Hoglund said. “We have a really broad menu, and we have to have enough variety so people can repeat their visits.”
The wait staff knows their regulars enough to know what they might like that’s new on the menu. And beyond having the best milkshake, Don’s was also voted the best lunch special in the Leader’s Readers Choice Awards.
“Because it’s open seating you get to know everybody,” said Steve Touger, who comes in to Don’s once a week. “Being able to talk with people is great. It’s my social aspect of the day.”
For locals, Don’s is Port Townsend’s best-hidden gem. For tourists who wander in to get some sunscreen from the pharmacy and discover the soda fountain in the back, it’s like walking backwards in time to an earlier era.
“If you want to know the history of this city,” Touger said. “This is the place to be.”
Not only have many of the wait staff lived in Port Townsend for more than 20 years, but many of Don’s patrons have lived in the city for 80 to 100 years.
“One day we were all chatting and there was a woman here who said she was celebrating her 100th birthday,” Landon said. “The woman sitting next to her then piped up and said, ‘I’m 100, too!’”
For Landon, who has worked at Don’s for eight years, the sense of community is what makes her love her job.
“I know everyone by name,” she said. “I know what they order. I love that the people I work with are my family.”
It might be the love that goes into the milkshakes that makes them voted the best in Port Townsend. It also might be the time the waitresses take to chat with their customers, or joke around with their regulars, while waiting for the ice cream to churn to perfection.
“They take time,” Landon said. “It’s not quick. It takes five to 10 minutes to get one going.”
It’s those five to 10 minutes that make all the difference.
“They’re just so thick,” Touger said. “They use good quality ingredients. And it’s the most relaxing place in town.”
