SPANISH FORK — It was a sweltering summer day when Tom Reece left his Orem home on a mission: To wet his whistle with a milk shake from Glade's Drive In.
Reece has made the 30-mile round trip to the popular Spanish Fork burger joint and shake place for more than 25 years, sometimes as often as every week.
"The food's good, and the cheeseburgers are great," he said of the place that some folks say makes the best shakes in Utah Valley.
On that hot day last week, he ordered only a strawberry shake. But when he gets a hankering for a burger, Glade's, which has become a legendary landmark along tree-lined Main Street, is the place to go for hot-off-the-grill goods.
Owner Brent Johnston buys meat from local cattlemen several times a week. He boasts that not an ounce of the meat cooked at his establishment has ever been frozen.
Jill Olsen, who frequented the red-and-white painted drive-in when she was a student at Spanish Fork High School in the 1970s, now lives in Hurricane. But when she pops into town, Glade's is on her menu.
"We went there a lot," she recalled from her high school days. "For $1.25 you could get a hamburger, fries and a drink."
She also remembers the bags of penny candy. "You didn't need a whole lot of money to get a lot of candy," she said.
Glade's was even a topic in her high school business class, Olsen said. Her teacher used it as an example of how a person could purchase a business, hold it for a decade, then sell at a profit.
Once an Arctic Circle, Glade Schwartz didn't want to turn the place into a sit-down restaurant as the food chain wanted back in 1962, he said. So, he changed the signage to bear his name. It was across the street from what was then a junior high school.
"I had no desire to have all those kids inside," he said. "We didn't have the room or the parking."
"Glade used to be the chief of police," Johnston said. "I got to know him from him being chief of police and me being a teenager."
That, too, was back in the 1960s when police chiefs in small towns kept a watchful eye on the local teens.
"It was just, 'Keep your nose clean and I'll give you a ride home,' " Johnston said. Then, he'd receive an invitation to work on Schwartz's farm. Now 73, Schwartz still operates his farm.
Later, Johnston had a son who needed medical care from Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City that his insurance wouldn't cover.
To pay the medical bills, he went to work during evenings at Glade's, where his wife was then working. With the intent of eventually buying the eatery, Johnston persuaded Schwartz to teach him the business. That was 23 years ago.
Many of today's employees are the children of the shop's first workers. Some things have changed, but much of the business remains the same, he said.
Workers at the counter still memorize the orders, rather than write them down, and shakes are still made from scratch. "That was the way I was taught to do it," he said.
Glade's reputation has spread. One day a group from Canada dropped by for some ice cream. They drove 50 miles out of their way to stop at Glade's, Johnston said.
Others stop by for the white sauce that's served with fries.
"It's kinda famous," Johnston said modestly.
While Denise Bennett has worked at Glade's 21 years, only one other person has been at the drive-in longer than Johnston.
Come September, Janet Hansen will have worked there 24 years. She started while she was in high school.
"That's kind of a record for the fast-food business," Johnston mused.
Both she and her husband worked at Glade's for seven years before he found another job.
Hansen usually works nights so she can care for her children during the day.
"He's good to work around my schedule," she said. "He takes good care of me."
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com