Clock Drive-In — Restaurant in Greenville

If you want to feel like you have gone back in time check out this Historic Greenville Drive-in from the 1950s serving Onion Rings, Chili Cheeseburger plates, Hot Dog plates.

via clockdrivein . com

1950s Greenville was a conservative city built on the textile industry, steeped in southern tradition. But the motor vehicle was exploding in popularity, and with four wheels came freedom.

New opportunities for teens to socialize later and with less supervision was met with excitement by some and shunned by others. The Clock, which was a popular family spot, began to fill with the cars of oh-so-cool teens after school. In fact, each high school in Greenville had its own “joint,” a popular place to socialize over hot food and cold drinks. If you were a student in Greenville and wanted to contact someone outside of school hours, you’d have to ring their home phone and speak to their parents. Or you could go to your school’s joint.

Located adjacent to a Winn grocery store (before Winn-Lovett and Dixie Home Stores partnered in 1955 to become Winn-Dixie), a pharmacy, and a Shoney’s, The Clock #3’s location turned out to be a product of great business foresight. Wade Hampton Blvd soon became a main thoroughfare, allowing Upstate residents to travel between Greenville, Spartanburg, and Charlotte. The Winn-Dixie Supermarket provided meat and produce for the restaurant, and the Clock’s parking lot, about three times the size it is now, could fill up with the cars of eager customers.

In the ‘60s, Wade Hampton High School opened just a mile down the road. The Clock Drive-In quickly became WHHS’s joint. You could pull into the Clock’s lot on a Friday night and have to wade through 2,000 students to get up to the bustling counter. A police officer would be assigned to just The Clock, to try to alleviate some of the loitering and the tough guy shows that often came with it.

A CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Meanwhile, some of the resistance to this new social structure was showing itself in Greenville.

Bob Jones University had procured the Winn-Dixie Building and finished a wall between its campus and all that was beyond it, particularly The Clock, which allowed inter-gender socializing that wasn’t in BJU’s vision for its students.

Even though the “looser” conduct between students was indeed a big change for the times, guys and gals were still largely self-separated. Girls stayed in their vehicles and ordered from the friendly curb hops, while the guys either stayed in their cars or went inside to order. Writer Randy Sue Coburn remembers in an article for the Washington Star, “[W]hile at the Clock, every Wade Hampton female, no matter how rebellious, was confined to sitting in a car. By an unwritten but uniformly observed rule, the indoor restaurant area was strictly male territory.” Not that the guys and gals didn’t ever mingle: the Clock was a great spot for a date.

In 1972, the Koutsioukis Brothers handed ownership of the Clock to Paul Banias. He did not raise prices and made only minor changes to the menu. As the textile industry fizzled out, Greenville’s pace slowed. But Clock customers remained as constant as the onion ring recipe, though now they showed up in small Japanese cars instead of flashy American to sit under the...

We walked in at 9:50pm because the website says close at 11, we walked in and the cashier lady Katie or something made a rude remark “5 minute countdown” so we quickly ordered, then she proceeds to ask why we came in so late and we told her that’s what the website says and she went on a rude tangent about how they can’t get google to change the times, then maybe post something on or around the website so we actually know ur closing time, then she proceeded to talk extremely rudely about the 5 other people getting food around us “why is everyone here” I have been going to this restaurant longer than she’s been alive, supported it when they almost had to close down, and I’m extremely disappointed in the atmosphere and how Don the manager just allow his employee to speak about customers that way, there was a much nicer way to go about letting us know that THEIR google site time is wrong and not make us feel like the ones in the wrong, I normally tip the workers because I have always love and adored the clock but I will not be revisiting if that retched girl is there taking my orders acting as if it’s a hard job to ring peoples orders in and tell them to have a good night, on top of that we ordered 2 chili burgers and assuming by the $15 total we thought we were getting the 2 $7.65 plates but no we got just two burgers and the bottle of the barrel sweet tea. Extremely disappointed and I hope Don sees this and takes corrective action because your employee was rude and made your amazing restaurant...

Came in around 315pm on Sunday 5/19/24. When. I walked in the was a gentleman employee at a table talking with a couple, never acknowledged my presence or anything. He walked out the door and left after his conversation. The female employee was sweeping the dining room floor, also there was no acknowledgment from her either!! The telephone started to ring, she stop sweeping, came around the counter, still no hello how you, I’ll be right with you, NOT A WORD!!! Put some hand sanitizer on her hands and proceeds to answer the phone and take the call in order instead. I had been standing at the counter for a good 7 mins by this time, even the cook didn’t greet me and he looked right at me, while making people food with his bare hands!!!!! SMH the worst experience ever!!!!! Wish I could have given a 0!! I came to the Big Clocks in Berea, great...