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Things that exist but probably shouldn't: Drive-thru daiquiri stands [1]

['Jennifer Sandlin']

Date: 2024-07-04

If you're not from Louisiana or have never visited, you might be surprised to find out how popular and ubiquitous drive-thru daiquiri stands are. Yes, you read that correctly, in Louisiana, you can get daiquiris—yes, the frozen alcohol drinks—at drive-thru windows.

NOLA.com provides some history:

Drive-thru daiquiri stands sprang up across south Louisiana in the early 1980s, and they were controversial from the beginning.

The Daiquiri Factory in Lafayette was perhaps the first. It was the brainchild of David Ervin, a forestry school dropout in his mid-20s who opened his drink stand on Johnson Street in late 1981, according to stories in The Times-Picayune archives. It was an overnight success – for Ervin, anyway.

For police, neighbors and organizations that lobbied for tougher laws against drunken driving, it was a nightmare.

"Snowcones with a kick give police a headache," said a headline in The Times-Picayune the following February. The accompanying story noted that "although Ervin's business sets the stage for drinking and driving, it is legal." Louisiana was one of 24 states that did not prohibit drinking alcohol while driving at the time.

The Lafayette drive-thru had "15 constantly churning frozen drink machines" oozing mixes such as strawberry daiquiris, whiskey sours and a concoction made with grain alcohol and fruit juice called Jungle Juice.

On June 25, 1982, Lafayette enacted a municipal ordinance banning open containers. On the same day, the Daiquiri Factory held a promotion in which it served champagne on the house, gave away T-shirts and debuted its revolutionary sealed container – a Styrofoam cup that had a plastic lid held in place by a piece of tape.

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