Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Ted’s goes “frostop-side-up” again
Posted by Ian McNulty on Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 10:33 AM
- Ian McNulty
- Ted's Frostop with its restored sign.
People who might have spotted the giant mug sign from Ted’s Frostop (3100 Calhoun St., 861-3615) being loaded onto a flatbed and trucked away one day last fall could be excused for thinking they’d witnessed the end of an era. In fact, it was part of a new chapter for a long-running legacy.
- Ian McNulty
- Crews hauled off the mug sign for repairs in September.
That mug is a 14-foot-tall, sheet metal relic from the glory days of the American burger stand, and it’s been a kitschy landmark along South Claiborne Avenue since it was first installed in the 1950s. More recently, it became a defiant symbol of Hurricane Katrina recovery.
- Ian McNulty
- The sign where it landed in the fall of 2005, before its initial repairs.
Originally mounted on a high pedestal over the restaurant, the mug was knocked down by Katrina’s storm winds, landing upside down in the parking lot. Rather than right it, the Ted’s crew had it repaired as it stood, with frosted top to the pavement. When Ted’s reopened in 2006, the logo on its menus and T-shirts was even changed to show the mug upside down.
- Ian McNulty
- The upside-down mug became a post-Katrina logo.
But the departure of the mug in September signaled a new start for Ted’s Frostop, which now has a new owner, a revamped menu and, as of last week, a newly restored mug sign returned to its original, frosted-side-up stature. Finishing touches coming this week include the addition of neon lettering, similar to the separate Frostop location in LaPlace, and a motor to make the sign spin on its base.
“I’m sure a lot of people will be upset that we don’t have it upside down anymore, but we want to signal there’s a renaissance going on,” says Peter Moss, who bought Ted’s earlier this year.
Moss is a Royal Street antiques dealer who also owns the Café Beignet coffee shops in the French Quarter and is a partner in the Steamboat Natchez.
He’s out to revitalize Ted’s, and repairing the mug was only one step. He’s replaced the pre-formed patties Ted’s has long used with fresh-ground chuck and the restaurant’s namesake root beer is once again the original Frostop recipe served in frosted mugs. Ted’s also upgraded its beer service, adding Abita drafts to the standard house pour of Budweiser.
“There are lot of regulars at Ted’s and we don’t want to scare them off, we just want to make the place better and return it to its glory,” he says. “The world has moved on to Burger King and Wendy’s, but there’s still a lot of iconic places in New Orleans and Ted’s is one of them.”
Ted’s has been spiffied up significantly inside and out since Moss took over, though it still looks and feels like the old place. Oldies tunes play through speakers in the parking lot, and its easy to envision the nostalgic drive-ins of the 1950s when munching through a paper-wrapped burger here.
The Frostop brand dates to 1926, when its first root beer stand opened in Springfield, Ohio. Eventually, hundreds of locations would spread across the country, a precursor to the multinational burger chains to follow. Ted’s Frostop opened in New Orleans in 1955, and more emerged around southeast Louisiana, from Baton Rouge to Thibodaux. By the 1980s these became independent operators using the Frostop name.
- Ian McNulty
- A gallery of othr Frostop signs adorns a wall at Ted's.
Moss says he’s getting his root beer from the original Frostop supplier in Ohio.
“When people taste this it will be just like they remember,” he says.
Ted’s Frostop
3100 Calhoun St., 861-3615
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Comments (3)
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There is a renaissance going on in New Orleans, but those iconic images of post Katrina New Orleans will be a part of this city's character for as long as the people who lived through it are around. It's a shame to see one of these symbols removed. It is good, however, that the new owner is upgrading the food, as the quality had deteriorated as it passed through successive owners since Ted sold it.
I just wish that someone would re-open HENRY'S SOUL FOOD formerly of N. Broad (right off the corner of Canal, now part of the bartending/casino-dealing school that used to be upstairs), somewhere in town, if not the original diner. I have enjoyed Ted's FrosTop, but Henry's Sunday Dinner was like going home!
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