GRAFTON -- The Westside Drive-In here is old school, harkening to the days of poodle skirts, customers ordering by speaker phone and car hops delivering the fast food on trays to be attached to car windows.
However, Friday's price of the Wagon Master burger was not from days gone by.
Tom Campbell was the lone customer Friday, 24 hours before today's opening to the public. He paid $1,600 for Westside Drive-In's version of the Big Mac.
Normal price, including tax, for the half-pound burger is $4.39.
Campbell, a well-known potato grower and state senator, paid the inflated price for this year's first Wagon Master at an auction fundraiser for Unity Medical Center, Grafton's hospital.
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The winning bid for the honor of devouring the year's first Wagon Master was $100, $200 and $220 in its first three appearances at the auction. So what happened this year?
"I got auction fever," Campbell said.
He also had auction competition. Susie Geiger was using the $1,000 she won in the fundraiser's drawing to drive up the price.
"Susie said she was going to make the Wagon Master bidding really roll, but never in my wildest dreams did I see it going that high," said Christl Durand, Unity Medical Center board member.
Westside, open from early May through Labor Day, has a cult-like following here, Durand said. "Since it is only open four months, driving by the Westside when it's closed is torture," she said. "People really look forward to it opening."
Westside owner Ryer Stark, 31, started working at the drive-in when he was 14. He has owned it for the last eight years. It was an A&W from its opening in 1958 until 1975. Its long history partly explains the popularity over all ages, Stark said.
The other reason is its star performer on the menu.
"We will sell 300 to 400 Wagon Masters on opening day," Stark said.
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If sales match the high end of his prediction, then the Wagon Master will bring in $1,600, the same as one sale netted Friday.
