Pops

 We drove in and parked in the parking lot because we were geocaching. But we could not find the answers we needed to get credit for our geocaching find, so I went inside to ask an employee for some help. Going inside was like going down the rabbit hole. 

One might do a double take at the price of their fuel and unless your tank is down to fumes, fuel can be purchased for 90¢ a gallon less just 10 miles down the road.

The unique architecture and size of the building might have a passerby wondering the reason Pops is on the outskirts of a 'little podunk community' near a much larger metro community.

But it is the iconic soda bottle or bottle of pop (if you are from South Dakota) located on the premises that has travelers from all over the US stopping for a photo and just maybe, like me, entering the building to check it out.

Pops is along Route 66, the Mother Road. Route 66 was established November 11, 1926 and will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2026. Running from Chicago IL to Santa Monica CA, it was originally 2448 miles long. It was removed from the US Highway System in 1985 when stretches of Interstate highway replaced sections of the original Route 66. A strong sense of nostalgia has had a substantial impact in bringing the old Route 66 back to life. While it is no longer a major destination route, it still draws thousands of tourists to its destination points each year. The stretches that are left have been getting recognition because of the upcoming anniversary and because of geocaching. That is why we stopped...three times! 

Usually, Route 66 stops for geocaching are at historical sites along the road, often original buildings or the remains of the original buildings. Pops was established in 2007 so it was not there in the early years. 

“Basically there was a small gas station that sat here for years and years; just your standard little rural gas station. The owners retired and sold the property. Pops Founder Aubrey McClendon bought the property and seeing as it was on the historic highway felt the store should capture some Route 66 nostalgia. For McClendon, that nostalgia included memories of road tripping as a kid and the different types of soda he could get as a kid in different parts of the country,” said Marty Doepke, vice president of the company.

McClendon hired acclaimed architect Rand Elliott, the same architect that worked on the Route 66 Museum—located a couple hours from the c-store—to design and expand the old c-store into a 5,000-square-foot soda ranch. Elliott created an ultra-modern design with a 1950s-style soda counter and all glass shelving to hold the glass soda bottles. ~ CStoreDecisions, April 2018

Soda Ranch

The north and south walls of the building are all windows lined with glass shelves displaying glass bottles of colored sodas from all over the world. In fact, 700 kinds of soda. 

Fact #5: How long does it take to clean all those shelves?

If you struggle to keep your shelves dusted at home, just imagine the daunting task facing POPS staff. With dozens of glass shelves lining the walls all around the building and hundreds of bottles of soda artistically arranged on those shelves, keeping them clean is a year-round job. But just how long does it take to clean the shelves at POPS?

“Roughly two weeks.,” Marty says. “Restaurant staff are assigned two shelves to clean each shift, excluding weekends. It’s all monitored on our shelf chart. Once the chart is filled, we start over again.” ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

blue carbonated drink

Fact #3: The Weirdest Sodas

If you’ve ever browsed the shelves at POPS, you might have noticed bacon-flavored or peanut butter-flavored sodas. Interested in knowing which one Marty would consider to be the weirdest? “There are too many in the running for most unusual,” he explains. “But some of the top contenders would be Beefdrinker’s Teriyaki Beef Jerky Soda or Lesters Fixins’ Ranch Dressing Soda. We also feature sodas with some pretty unusual names, including Avery’s Kitty Piddle or Pimple Pop.  There are some unusual fruit sodas, too, including Sioux City Prickly Pear and Hot Lips Marionberry.”

And POPS sodas truly come from all over the world. “In terms of soda that has traveled the farthest distance, we feature Bundaberg sodas from Australia,” Marty adds.  POPS features sodas from 13 different countries, including Austria, Italy, England, El Salvador, Brazil, Lebanon, Canada, Jamaica and Mexico. ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

McClendon called his father ‘Pops.’ “His father Joe was a soda jerk when he was a kid and Aubrey called his dad, Pops, and that really contributed to the name,” Doepke said. That and the plethora of soda pop options.

“When we opened the doors we had 400 different types of bottled pop, all packaged in glass bottles from all over the U.S. and around the world. We quickly saw the popularity of what we had to offer and went from 400 to 500 types of pop very quickly,” he said. ~ CStoreDecisions, April 2018

Pops carries 80 different root beers and is the only place where Round Barn Root Beer can be purchased, That is related to the next blog post.

The top two best selling pop flavors haven’t changed since Pops first opened its doors. Sugar-cane-based Dr Pepper, which comes in an eight-ounce glass bottle, has been the best selling soda flavor since day one. The No. 2 best selling pop flavor has always been Round Barn Root Beer, which is bottled locally. “It gives a nod to another Route 66 icon, which happens to be about a quarter mile across the street from us. The Round Barn is in Arcadia itself,” Doepke said.

It’s no secret that carbonated soft drink sales have declined at convenience stores as customers seek more health-conscious alternatives. Many beverage manufacturers and c-stores have responded with craft sodas featuring more natural ingredients.

The effervescent retailer has seen a similar trend. “Most of our soda does feature cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. The stigma of the high fructose corn syrup has been a negative on soda sales over the years,” Doepke said. “As a result, we’ve seen the mass-produced brands suffer in sales over the last few years. Meanwhile, we’ve seen a surge in craft soda sales. It’s amazing to see how many brands are out there and most of them do include cane sugar as the sugar substitute, or Stevia in some of the more natural brands.” ~ CStoreDecisons, April 2018

At a height of 66 feet (get it? 66?) the massive Pops Soda Bottle was considered to be the tallest soda bottle in the world, weighing in at over four tons. It was constructed by WW Steel in Oklahoma City at their fabrication plant there. Once completed, it was delivered in one piece and took an entire day to move to its new home. Its red rock and steel trusses are covered in hundreds of multi-colored LED lights that can be seen from miles away at night. ~ Wander Wisdom, Eric Strandridge; May 11, 2022

So why did we stop three times???

This ultramodern gas station showcases thousands of colorful soda pop bottles. In addition, POPS includes a popular restaurant featuring a traditional soda fountain, mouth-watering burgers and hand-dipped milk shakes that serves approximately 475,000 people each year. ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

We enjoyed classic cheese burgers and fries and Round Barn Root Beer for lunch. (We were in the area geocaching and we needed to eat.) And I browsed the gift shop for the second time and found another something I had to buy.

The third stop was because we wanted to buy some bottles of their best selling, locally brewed root beer after we had completed the reason for heading back to Arcadia today. But alas, it could only be purchased as fountain drinks as they were all out of the bottled Round Barn Root Beer.

Fifty-three geocaches hidden mostly in cedar trees and on fence posts are now found and signed with our geocachings handles. I will say OK has some fun geo-arts. We completed the I See Dead People one this spring. Curt has some more puzzles solved, but with snow and much colder temps in the forecast (it was 58º today), we will continue to head west and south.