Royal Drive-In Cast of Characters

Every small town has one – a café or restaurant where the locals congregate for coffee and the breakfast special. Forty years ago that place in Allen was called The Royal Drive-In. 

The Royal was bulldozed in the early 1980’s but its footprint still exists at the corner of Allen Drive and the northbound Central Expressway access road. Pull to the Allen Drive stop sign, look to your right and there it is; the driveway that once led Allen residents to a hot meal and a heap of conversation. 

 The Royal was built in 1967 by Jack Rattan, a successful McKinney businessman who owned a wholesale candy and fountain supply operation. Rattan leased the Allen store to one of his salesmen, Odie Clark, who ran the business through 1978. 

 Odie and his son Randy (a 1977 AHS graduate), recently sat down for some coffee and breakfast to discuss a business that every long-time Allen resident remembers. 

 I was warned that Odie was a “bit of a character” and he doesn’t deny it. That’s because the Royal Drive-In was full of characters he says. “Almost every day you could count on Papa Boyd and Gene Butler and Pete Ford stopping in for breakfast. If our staff was shorthanded, one of them would just go behind the counter and make the coffee themselves. It was that kind of place.” 

 A short time after the Royal opened, Dairy Queen was built in downtown Allen where the current Allen Café stands. The DQ became the hangout for kids, said Randy, while the businessmen and highway travelers usually stopped at the Royal. “The two restaurants and a parking lot downtown formed a sort of triangle for the teenagers,” he added. “Kids would drive by all three to see who was hanging out where for the evening. It was a small town.” 

 The place could be murderer’s row for football players after a bad game, said Odie. “Everyone went to the games and the guys at the counter would be ready to quiz the players who wandered in the next morning. It was in good fun but they could be tough on the kids.” It was the people coming through that made the Royal a special place according to Odie. He then proceeded to drop names that are familiar to anyone who grew up in Allen. 

“Guys like Jerry Burton, Anthony Hancock, Kenneth Shearer, Jerry Carpenter, Bill Enloe and Dudley Robertson were all regulars. Throughout the day the cast of characters changed but the menu rarely did. Burgers and fries, chicken fried steak, fried chicken and milkshakes were standard fare. One name that drew a smile from both Randy and Odie was Pat Terrell, the cook. “She could cook faster than two people and folks knew she was the boss.” The most colorful character that rolled into the Royal was Erven Bolin. 

“Every day he would pull into the Royal parking lot in an old beater pickup truck. An old yellow hound dog would sit patiently on the tool box while he was inside. He always referred to his wife as Bear saying “got to get home before Bear calls me.” Odie pulled out of the food service business in 1978 and worked in the home improvement business for about 15 years. He then got talked into managing the Farmersville Dairy Queen for several years. 

 The Royal lasted a few more years and was converted into a used car lot before it was torn down. It was time for that building to go, Randy pointed out. “Allen was just a great place to grow up,” added Randy, who serves as assistant chief of the Collin County Sheriff’s Department. “People knew who you were and where your family lived. They looked out for each other.” 

 One thing is for sure. Odie Clark knew everyone and everyone knew Odie Clark. That’s a pretty good legacy for a character.