Highland Park Pharmacy: A bite of nostalgia
If you are a nostalgia buff, you shouldn’t miss the Highland Park Pharmacy on Knox Street. It’s almost celebrating its centennial – having opened in January 1912 – a year before the city of Highland Park was incorporated.
Walking inside and you’ve stepped into another era, complete with the antique cash register up front and the white octagon tile floor. The left side of the pharmacy is dominated by the soda fountain with counter seating on old fashioned leather topped swivel stools – the kind you loved to spin on until you got dizzy back in the day.
The soda fountain churns out milkshakes, floats, ice cream sodas or orange, cherry or lime phosphates – to name a few. On the day I visited, there were quite a few children here with their parents or grandparents.
After eating dessert first, check the menu chock full of comfort food – the grilled cheese sandwiches and Frito pie are favorites. The Palm Beach is popular – grilled pimento cheese – grated cheddar with pimento and mayonnaise. The barbecue sandwich – they call it the Dobbin – is fabulous.
You’ll want to peruse the sundries available here – and yes, it still is a working pharmacy with a friendly pharmacist to match. Caswell Massey toiletries, Kent combs – things you would have found in your grandmother’s bathroom cabinet. My mother brought me here as a child and I remember seeing all the old boxes for familiar products – like Kleenex and Carter’s little pills.
And, don’t forget to take a little bit with you – a gumball from the machines outside can complete your nostalgic afternoon.
HelloDallas Tip: Highland Park Pharmacy has joined the 21st century. You can actually “friend” the pharmacy on Facebook. But, they’re not yet on twitter.
Posted by Constance Hannon
