I worked at the Clark’s Station for a short time they were talking about.

 

7. The Milky Way

^{(PHOTO: Courtesy of John Eastberg)}

One of three Milky Way restaurants opened by Arthur Richter, the Port Washington Road Milky Way is the only one that has something of an international profile. That’s because Tom Miller, who graduated from nearby Nicolet High School in 1958, was a regular at the drive-in. And when "Happy Days," the TV show that Miller created, launched on ABC-TV in January 1974, it brought Arnold’s (later Al’s) Drive-In into homes across the world.

Though some in Milwaukee claim Leon’s was the inspiration for Arnold’s, others say it was the Pig’n Whistle. Both are wrong. The Milwaukee Journal of Jan. 12, 1986, settled the matter:

"According to Miller, it was the Milky-Way (sic), and only the Milky-Way. And that’s only logical, because the Milky-Way was the place where all the North Shore 'kaleeges' (high schoolers bound for college) congregated. Miller was one of them. Across the street next to the old Clark station was the Redwood, where the 'hoods,' the ducktailed, leather-jacketed guys, hung out."

That was the social atmosphere in which Miller spent his teen years, and it was those experiences that he drew upon when he concepted "Happy Days."

"Arnold’s is really a compilation of everybody’s recollections of the drive- in of the ’50s," Miller told the Journal in 1977. "It’s just that the Milky Way was closest to me when I grew up on Bay Ridge (Avenue)."

At the dawn of the 1940s, Richter was working as a machinist and living on West Capitol Drive. He also briefly ran a candy shop on 37th and Vliet called Richter's Marzipan and candy.

By 1943, he’d opened the Milky Way roadside stand next door to his home, at 6317 W. Capitol Dr., and within five years, he had added the location that would later inspire the Fonz’s hangout. The original location appears to have closed by around 1956. Karl Kopp says his mom, Elsa, got her start in custard working at the Milky Way and, for a time, running the Capitol Drive shop, before she opened her own place in 1950.

A third location, at 418 N. Lovers Lane Rd. in Wauwatosa – now the intersection of Bluemound and Mayfair Roads – operated until about 1958.

One of the Milky Way’s most beloved concoctions was the Dusty Twin, a double-barreled version of the malty dusty road: two scoops of vanilla custard in a reusable turquoise plastic boat, with hot fudge and malt powder, with two generous dollops of whipped cream and a pair of cherries (one atop each dollop).

In 1959, Richter’s son-in-law, Dick Chiappa, took over the business. The Milky Way’s run ended in November 1977, and immediately after, Kopp’s moved in and started building a new custard legacy on the site that continues today.