HOULTON, Maine –Melanie Harforth of Hartford, Conn., can still remember how excited she was when she first got a job at York’s Dairy Bar in the early 1970s.
It was the summer before her senior year in high school, she recalled Thursday, and she wanted a job, but “not one that involved a potato field.”
“I had done both the picking potatoes and working on the harvester thing,” she recalled. “It was actually my mother who suggested that I try and get a job at York’s Dairy Bar.”
Opened in 1960 by Gerard and Hope York, the North Street dairy bar was a seasonal establishment that offered not only ice cream, milkshakes and other frozen treats, but also sandwiches, baskets and fried foods.
“I had several friends who had worked there over the years, and I was lucky that I was able to get a job there, too,” Harforth recalled. “It really was one of the best places to work, because Hope York was such a wonderful woman, and also because of the friends you made and the customers. They were pretty loyal.”
Marcia Lundstrom, a Houlton resident, said that she and her family “always looked forward to York’s opening up for the season” when spring rolled around.
“One of the best things about the dairy bar was they offered car hop service,” she recalled. “It was a slice of life that you just don’t see anymore.”
Lundstrom said that when her cousins from New York came to visit each summer, they used to love to go to the dairy bar and watch as the car hops delivered the food right to the customer’s vehicle.
“My youngest cousin, John, just loved the Awful Awfuls,” she said, referring to the milkshake drink. “They were so thick there that you thought the straw was going to get clogged. He used to beg us to take him there.”
Mark Cote, a former Houlton resident who now lives in Presque Isle, said that he has fond memories of hanging out at the dairy bar after work in the summer, and especially after picking potatoes in the early fall.
“They had the best cheeseburgers and french fries,” he said. “And the food wasn’t expensive. You would usually see someone you knew there. I really miss the place.”
The dairy bar closed in the early 2000s.
