Today, looking through a 1953 St. Agnes Academy yearbook — I imagine dozens of readers spent their weekend doing the same — I was surprised to find this photo of the Tropical Freeze.
Surprised — because this shows the place was in business considerably earlier than I thought (I would have said late 1950s), and also because it shows how much the building had changed over the years.
Built at the southwest corner of Poplar and White Station, this tropical-themed establishment attracted customers from all over East Memphis, and — judging from the grainy photos of the place that occasionally showed up in old yearbooks — it was a hugely popular hangout for students from White Station, Overton, Bartlett, East, St. Agnes, and other schools "out east."
Most people who went there have fond memories of a thatched "jungle" building, with three palm trees on the roof (cast from cement and illuminated by colored floodlights), a fountain in the parking lot surrounded by sea shells, and a miniature dancing hula girl — some kind of mechanical contraption — in the front window. Everybody, it seems, has a different memory.
But look carefully at this photo from 1953, and focus (if you can — I know it's grainy) on the rooftop. No palm trees, lighted or otherwise, decorate the roof. Instead, you'll see a single-dip ice-cream cone, mounted atop a three-panel sign. The middle panel clearly spells out "Tropical Freeze" in what seems to be neon letters, and it's balanced by two painted signs that show tropical fruits. It's hard to see them in that photo, but years ago a reader who had somehow acquired the old Tropical Freeze menu boards and signs sent me tiny snapshots of them, and here's one of those signs from the roof. It's definitely the same sign — the one on the right. See the bananas?
I'm sorry the fruit photo isn't any larger. I wonder who painted it (and the others)? I tried to contact the nice fellow who originally sent them to me, but found out he had apparently left town — in a hurry. Something about owing money to Basil, and believe me, nobody wants to be in that situation.
Anyway, back to the 1953 photo. It shows the awnings that wrapped around the front of the building, but as you can see here, they're just metal slats, painted white.
This photo also reveals another historical detail: I didn't know the Tropical Freeze employed carhops, and I must say I'm intrigued by the size of that ice-cream cone he's bringing the students. It's almost larger than the one on the roof.
Okay, now let's slip forward about eight years, to another grainy photo, also from a St. Agnes yearbook — this one from 1961 (below). In just a few years, some changes have clearly taken place at the Tropic Freeze. First of all, try to look past all the young women in their tropical dresses, standing on a low brick wall that once ran along Poplar. In the background, it's obviously the same building, but the owners have added a much larger ice-cream cone to the roof, and it's NEON — to match the neon of the "Tropical Freeze" lettering below. And even the lettering on the sign seems to have changed. In the 1953 photo, "Tropical" is in some kind of italics, but in the photo below the same word look more like block lettering.
More significant, in 1961, you'll also see the trunks of the rooftop palm trees, and the ragged edges of those awnings look like some kind of "thatchery" to me. At any rate, they don't look as if they are still painted white.
It would be hard to miss this place if you drove past it at night. As I said, if you were paying attention, this photo was taken in 1961, and the 1960s were the best years for the Tropical Freeze. Sometime in the early 1970s, the building was either demolished, or transformed rather drastically into a Roy Rogers roast beef franchise. After a few years it became a Danver's, and then a Pancho's.
In recent years it has been home to Starbucks, but when I drove by recently I was shocked to see the building had been demolished. Who on earth has ever closed a Starbucks in North America? Was this a first for Memphis? Well, it seems Starbucks has moved across Poplar into a new building that provides better access — something that was almost impossible if a train was rolling along the tracks behind the old building, blocking traffic on White Station.
That corner lot is being converted to — look, I don't need to go into that. I just want to write about the Tropical Freeze here. Haven't I done enough for one day?
