63 years of memories at an old-school Alabama burger and shake shack

For Betty and Raymond Grissom, it was all about coming home – back to the small northwest Alabama town where they met in high school.

Homer Grissom, one of Raymond’s 13 siblings, had visited a Frosty Inn root beer and burger shop on a family vacation to Florida, and he wanted to open one just like it in his hometown of Russellville, the county seat of Franklin County.

Since Homer already had a service station to look after and his wife, Polly, was working as a teller at the bank, though, he needed Raymond and Betty to run the place.

Never mind that they didn’t know the first thing about the restaurant business.

They would learn.

“It was just trial and error for us,” Betty says. “We soon got the hang of it, I guess, and everything fell into place.”

The Frosty Inn would become Betty and Raymond’s life.

Nine in the morning until 11 at night.

Seven days a week.

For 42 years.

Betty Grissom ran Russellville’s Frosty Inn with her late husband, Raymond, for 42 years. She still drops in on occasion for a hot dog topped with chili, cheese and slaw.(Bob Carlton/[email protected])

‘The face of this place’

For folks around Russellville, Betty and her late husband, Raymond, are as synonymous with the Frosty Inn as that oversized faux root beer barrel that stands tall on the rooftop, a beacon to hungry (and thirsty) passers-by on the U.S. 43 bypass on the south end of town.

“She and Raymond were the face of this place,” Pam Hester, who currently owns the Frosty Inn with her husband, Ty, says. “Even though it’s got new owners and we’ve got a wonderful business, they are the people that you associate with this.”

Pam, who grew up in tiny Belgreen, an unincorporated community about10 miles west of Russellville, started going to the Frosty Inn as a little girl.

Her grandmother, Kate Grissom, who was married to Raymond’s brother Lonnie, used to take her there for cheeseburgers and cherry sundaes.

“She would always say, ‘Let’s go to Betty and Raymond’s and get us a cherry sundae,’” Pam remembers. “It was a treat for us. We didn’t go out much. The restaurants were few and far between then.”

Fast forward a few decades later, and Pam and Ty would be the ones keeping the Frosty Inn tradition alive.

They took over the business in 2012.

“It never even crossed our minds that that would happen — that I would be at the Frosty Inn serving cherry sundaes and those little cheeseburgers,” Pam says.

Frosty Inn in Russellville, Ala. — The Frosty Inn has been an institution in Russellville since brothers Homer and Raymond Grissom and their respective wives Polly and Betty opened it in 1960.(Bob Carlton/[email protected])

‘Very much a tradition here’

In small towns all around Alabama – at places like Ed’s Drive-In in Jackson and the Tasty Dip in Heflin — little mom-and-pop burger and shake shops like the Frosty Inn are among the last of their kind, throwbacks to the days when the local drive-in was the hub and heartbeat of the community.

Despite the encroachment of national fast-food brands like McDonald’s and KFC and Taco Bell, a few of those old places have survived and, in some cases, even thrived.

Famous for its footlong dogs, ribeye sandwiches, banana splits and soft-serve ice cream, the Frosty Inn will celebrate 63 years in business in May.

“It’s still very much a tradition here,” lifelong Russellville resident and Frosty Inn regular Wally Pickett says. “I’ve been here forever, and I hope I’m still going to the Frosty Inn years from now.”

In 1960, when Betty and Raymond opened “the Frosty,” as Betty lovingly calls their place, burgers and barbecue sandwiches were five for a dollar and a large mug of root beer was a dime.

“You put it in that cold mug, and it would form ice,” Betty remembers. “That’s what people loved. And, of course, they loved the mugs, too. Everybody wanted a drink in a mug.”

While the Frosty kept them hopping, the Grissoms later opened a dry-cleaning business, Grissom Cleaners, downtown, and for a couple of years, they even ran a second burger joint and dairy bar, the Chat-N Chew, in neighboring Phil Campbell.

Betty was relieved the day Raymond came home and told her he had sold the Chat-N Chew.

“Two was too much,” she says. “You can’t spread yourself any thinner than what we were doing.”

All the while, they raised two children, Ramona and Mark, who were 4 and 2, respectively, when Raymond and Betty opened the Frosty and who grew up in their parents’ restaurant.

“I never wanted to miss anything my kids did,” Betty says. “My daughter was in the band, and I didn’t want to miss seeing her march. And my son played baseball, football and basketball, and I didn’t want to miss any of those games.

“But sometimes, it didn’t work out to where I could go. Or I might could go, but I might not be there at the beginning or the end. That’s the biggest thing about being in a small business.”

On Friday nights in the fall, Betty and Raymond would leave the Russellville High School Golden Tigers football games at halftime, run to the Frosty to grill hamburgers and spin milkshakes. and then rush back to the stadium in time to feed the players after the game.

(One former Golden Tiger once teased that those post-game Frosty Inn meals were the motivational fuel that led Russellville to back-to-back-to-back state championships in 1966, 1967 and 1968. “Everyone wanted to beat our opponent and go eat,” he said.)

Right out of ‘American Graffiti’

As a teenager in the early 1970s, Wally Pickett spent many of his weekend nights hanging out at the Frosty Inn with his classmates.

“If you saw ‘American Graffiti,’ they could have gotten the plot for that from the Frosty Inn,” he says. “It’s so similar.

“A lot of us had muscle cars — you know, Chevelles and Camaros and Mustangs — and we all met at the Frosty Inn. In the summer, it was nearly every night.”

Some of those nights were more mischievous than others.

Pickett remembers once when a group of football players picked up an old sofa that had been left by the side of the highway and transported it to the Frosty Inn, where they somehow managed to get it up on the roof.

When Raymond drove up and saw what was going on, Pickett continues the story, he was more concerned that somebody might have gotten hurt climbing on the roof than he was irritated about having a sofa on top of his building.

That was just like Raymond.

“We had people one time do a little damage to (the restaurant),” Betty remembers. “They were just being mischievous. Their parents were upset. Raymond wasn’t so upset because he said it could be fixed. It was just kids being kids.”

After 42 years at the Frosty, though, Betty and Raymond handed the keys to the family business over to their daughter and son-in-law, Ramona and Jeff Robinson, in 2002.

Betty wasn’t quite ready to let go just yet, but she did.

“Betty, I’m going home,” Raymond told her. “You can go with me, or you can stay back here and work.”

“I believe I’ll go with you,” she said.

The Frosty remained in the Grissom family for another 10 years.

‘Like having a death in the family’

In 2012, though, word got around that the Frosty Inn might have to close.

Jeff was not recovering as planned from his second back surgery, and Ramona, who just retired after 33 years as a teacher, principal and special education coordinator with Russellville City Schools, had just started a statewide job as a contract consultant for the Alabama State Department of Education’s federal programs division.

Between Jeff’s health problems, and Ramona’s travel schedule, they didn’t see any way they could keep the Frosty going.

“This has been such an emotional time for us,” Ramona told the Franklin County Times then. “To know that the Frosty won’t be in our family anymore is almost like having a death in the family.”

Raymond, who was by then in his late 70s, even tried to talk Betty into the two of them coming out of retirement and taking it over again, just like old times.

This time, it was Betty who had to put her foot down.

“We just need to go back to the Frosty,” she remembers Raymond telling her.

“Raymond, we’re too old,” she recalls her reply. “I can’t do it.”

Enter Pam and Ty Hester, who, for 20 years, ran a convenience store and gas station called CJ’s Grocery, Bait & Tackle in Pam’s home community of Belgreen.

When they bought that business, it didn’t offer food service, but they added a kitchen and some tables and chairs, and soon CJ’s became the place to go for hand-patted burgers, meat-and-three lunches, and Friday night catfish dinners.

Ty had grown up in Spruce Pine, about 10 miles south of Russellville, and he, too, had fond memories of eating at the Frosty Inn – sometimes twice a day, his wife says.

So, when he found out it might close, he told Pam they needed to buy it.

“We were real excited because this place had been here for so long,” Pam remembers. “We just thought it would be a good change for us.”

It was just a happy coincidence that Pam’s grandmother, the woman who used to treat her to cherry sundaes, had been married to Raymond Grissom’s brother.

“That’s not really why we bought it,” Pam says. “We were just looking for a change from the convenience store, but it wasn’t because they were family. It just worked out.”

For Betty Grissom, it was all bittersweet.

“When we found out the kids wanted to sell it, it was hard,” she says. “I was happy for (the Hesters), but I was kind of sad, too, that it was out of my family.”

(The dry cleaner, now owned by Betty and Raymond’s son, Mark, remains in the Grissom family.)

‘Stop and see what it’s all about’

Like the Grissoms, the Hesters have other irons in the fire besides the Frosty.

Although they sold their Belgreen convenience store in 2016, about a year ago, they took over three commercial chicken layer houses, a demanding business that doesn’t afford Ty much spare time at the restaurant.

So, most days, Pam is here from opening until close, greeting customers, taking orders, and doing her best to keep the Frosty Inn relevant while maintaining its nostalgic charm.

A few years ago, the Hesters spruced up the dining room, freshening up the color scheme, installing new lighting, and decorating the walls with portraits of local folks taken by her daughter-in-law, photographer Montana Hester.

To make the ordering process more efficient, Pam also upgraded to a point-of-sale software system.

“We needed to do a little updating,” she says. “Everything needs to change at some point in time. We just wanted to bring it into the 2000s because it was still back in the day.”

One thing she won’t ever replace, though, is that big barrel on top of the building.

It’s her best advertisement.

“People will pass by and see the barrel, and I think it’s something that they need to stop and see what it’s all about,” Pam says. “We get a lot of customers from that.”

As a reminder of how much the Frosty Inn still means to Russellville, at the Russellville High School homecoming parade a couple of falls ago, the Class of 2024 designed a replica of the restaurant for their class float — complete with walk-up windows, a menu board, and that iconic root beer barrel.

When she heard about it, Pam hurried downtown to get some pictures.

“They did a good job,” Pam says. “They represented us very well.”

‘Like a favorite aunt’

Raymond Grissom died in 2015, at 81, but Betty still drops by the Frosty on occasion for a hot dog topped with chili, nacho cheese and coleslaw.

“Yeah,” she smiles, “I’m a pretty good customer.”

Although it’s been more than 20 years since she and Raymond ran the Frosty, Betty says she still hears from old customers who tell her how much they miss seeing her friendly face on the other side of the walk-up window.

Wally Pickett is one of them.

“She just took care of us like a favorite aunt,” he says. “When you see her, you want to hug her.”

The Frosty Inn is at 12805 U.S. 43 in Russellville, Ala. The phone is 256-332-2052. Hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. For more information, go here.

READ MORE ON ALABAMA FOOD:

This food truck’s connection to a beloved Birmingham restaurant

BBQ is in the name but tacos are the game for this Alabama food truck

12 Alabama restaurants to put on your 2023 calendar

The story behind these legendary Alabama orange rolls

This Alabama restaurant takes pimento cheese to the next level