Do you remember Besser’s?
In good news for me, the only anonymous tips I get at the newspaper are ones like this:
This index card came, unsigned, in an equally unmarked envelope. To my anonymous contributor, thanks for the tip about Besser’s!
A family friend of ours, Gene Rank, who now lives in Florida, wrote to me about Besser’s as well; he says, “How about Besser’s restaurant, motel and truck stop on Route 111 South and North of Shrewsbury. It was my first job in the real world working the gas pumps, counter, making soups and slicing the meats for hot sandwiches.”
Even Jim McClure was asking me the other day, what was Besser’s? So I was glad to be able to give a slight answer, but I’d love to hear more memories you have of it.
Besser’s was adjacent to the Trail Drive-in Theater. Besser’s was part diner and part junk souvenir shop and had a seedy reputation as I recall. I seem to think they may have had rooms or cabins for rent also. I only ever ate one thing from the kitchen and it was a terrible burger with watery ketchup. I was just a kid and worked in the mornings at the Trail Drive-in picking up the paper and debris from the movie goers the night before. I would go to Besser’s to mostly play the pin ball machine and buy soda. Scores of buses from Baltimore would stop at Besser’s on the way to the York Fair. I think that is how they stayed in business.