Return of a classic Parker County drive-in: Relive the ’60s with burgers, malts
The Malt Shop is back, and so are the 1960s.
The days of highway cruising and stopping for a chocolate malt have returned at the retro hamburger drive-in at 2028 Fort Worth Highway, making the 5-minute drive from a giant H-E-B grocery in Parker County seem like a 60-year trip back in time.
The Malt Shop is the real deal. It is one of the few remaining all-original drive-in restaurants in North Texas.
New owners David Hart and Shawn Allen repainted it, polished it up and added a breakfast menu, making it a must-stop again for families, teens or anyone needing to escape from the monotonous chain restaurants in Hudson Oaks.
The radio show “ ’60s Gold” was playing over the sound system Sunday as families handed around cups of homemade cherry or peach ice cream or butterscotch malts.
A clean-cut young couple from Aledo came up and offered prayers, apparently taking pity on an older guy dining all alone on Father’s Day.
It could have been 1965 instead of 2025, down to the old-school cheeseburger with a thick, ripe red tomato slice and crispy tater tots (combo, $11.50).
This is what Sonic Drive-Ins were like when the first location opened in Oklahoma in 1958, the same year “Little MIldred” Lewis Skiles bought the Malt Shop.
The first drive-in restaurant in America opened in North Texas in 1921, when Kirby’s Pig Stand drew motorists on what is now West Davis Street in Dallas.
Today, the remaining drive-ins can be counted on one hand: the Malt Shop, Frosty Drive N in Denton and Theo’s Drive-In in Grand Prairie, and maybe a couple more in outlying towns.
Hart and Allen rescued the Malt Shop in February and reopened it, hiring new staffers and remodeling all at once.
“The Malt Shop of Weatherford has been a part of this town since the 1950s when two brothers built it for their wives before heading off to war,” Hart, owner of Hart HVAC, wrote on Facebook when he bought the restaurant..
The Malt Shop opens from 5:30 a.m. through dinner Tuesdays through Fridays, from 7 am through dinner Saturdays and for lunch and dinner Sundays.
It’ll be particularly busy July 12 during the Parker County Peach Festival; 817-594-2524, facebook.com.
This story was originally published June 16, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
