Twohey's

The Missus is a better date than the Pooj. Sorry Pooj.

(Twohey's Restaurant, July 2010)

For 66 years and going, Twohey’s has been an Alhambra / South Pasadena / San Marino institution – probably leftover from bygone days when drive-ins were more prevalent along old Route 66. I often think that I would have liked to live in those drive-in days, with their soda fountains, roaring LA car culture, and burgeoning rock-n-roll underground. Then I consider that I probably would not have much enjoyed living during such a racist era, when the only access I would have been allowed to the aforementioned drive-ins, car-culture, and rock-n-roll would have been whatever I could glimpse from a distance through the glass of the grocery store, pawn shop, or dry cleaner where I worked… Considering further that the missus and I would have been a forbidden match back in that day, I am thankful for the minority generations past who endured the oppression and labored to create the era and the LA I now enjoy, where most times I’m not even conscious that we would be classified as an “inter-racial” couple – an era and an LA where Twohey’s is a rose-colored nostalgic reminder of the better parts of years past.

These days, I’m willing to bet that Twohey’s better known as being that-place-that-has-reserved-parking-spaces-so-you-can’t-park-there-if-you’re-trying-to-go-to-the-neighboring-In-N-Out… Having said that, they serve a pretty good burger, an even better turkey melt, and nearly-perfect fresh potato chips. As is often the case with these old roadside dives, there’s a glass case by the register that sells T-shirts and other restaurant paraphernalia, along with random memorabilia of their heyday – a case that also displays pies and old fashioned bottled sodas. Conspicuously missing from said display case, but boldly stated in the drink menu, however, is the real reason for my current rant – they make their own root beer!

Yeah…

It’s probably better that Twohey’s keeps their root beer out of the display case, since it’s unfortunately kind of a dud. Really, it tastes like carbonated water, and little else. There’s an inkling of a potential root beer flavor in there, but really, it tastes like what comes out of a soda fountain when the syrup is running low. Funny thing is that it’s actually a slightly nostalgic taste for me – back when I was in 5th grade, I went to the March Air Force Base Museum (before it was an Air Reserve Base) for a friend’s birthday party. We got to run around an old unused portion of the runway where there were 50 or 60 some-odd retired planes on display – fighters, bombers, cargo transports, experimental flyers, helicopters, spy gliders, what have you – some were from before WWII (an awesome B-29), some were used in movies (the C-130 from Con Air), others were stealthily cool (an SR-71 and a U2) or just plain odd (the “Flying Banana” helicopter). We were even allowed to climb inside a couple of them. At any rate though, we went to a pizza joint inside the Base for lunch, and I got a big glass of Coke not realizing that the syrup was low, unsure as to why my soda tasted weird when I returned to the table. Well, the Twohey’s Root Beer tasted kind of like that, except without all the cool flying machines to go with it (not even a B-52!). I have a sneaking suspicion that the root beer wasn’t actually bottled in the bottle it was served to me in, that they keep a bunch of empty bottles around affixed with spiffy retro-looking self-printed labels, and that when someone orders a Twohey’s Root Beer, they drop some syrup in the bottle, and fill the rest of it with carbonated water from their soda fountain. Maybe the person who filled my bottle was a soft touch with the syrup and a heavy hand with the fizzy water. Who knows…?

Maybe if I’m in the mood to give them another shot, I’ll give the root beer another try in the hopes that someone else is filling the bottles then. Until then, I’m definitely filing Twohey’s as a good place to get a burger, probably a great place to get a malt, and probably a good place to get a root beer float, provided that they fill my glass with the mass market stuff. For now though, Twohey’s Root Beer gets a lowly 1.

(Eh, maybe a 1.5, but that extra 0.5 is just for taking the effort of trying to make their own brew…)