"The Rebel"

For a time during the 1950s, the Rebel Drive-In was recruiting customers not just from the south side of town, but also from the north, east and west sides.

And the marvel of the restaurant wasn’t the burgers and fries; it was the carhops dressed in Confederate gray uniforms and speeding by on roller skates while carrying trays of soft drinks.

The drive-in at 34th Street and Avenue P was state of the art, and it cost its founder, Steve Etter, $100,000.

His son, Jerry, was working inside, of course, mixing the syrup and a special substance for either red or green cherry limes.

“My memories were that I wish I had been running around at the Rebel instead of working inside,” Etter said. “It was a busy place that employed a lot of people. We had one family, the Pattersons, that had four sisters who worked there at the same time.”

Hazel Rudder of Lubbock, who was one of the Patterson girls and only 15 at the time, loved the skating. She would have worked for free, almost.

“To me, we didn’t have to pay to go skating. We could skate free and make tips.”

Via SHNV