OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – As students begin walking through school doors, one business is closing its doors because of it.
Workers at Ardy and Ed’s Drive-In are hanging-up their roller skates early for the first time in 71 years. The Oshkosh restaurant is usually open through September, but not this year.
“I’ve really liked it the whole time I’ve been here,” said Ardy & Ed’s car hop waitress Megan White.
The roller-skating carhops.
“You just get used to the feeling of the skates, and eventually you can just skate around!” car hop Bailey Staerkel explained, spinning around in her skates.
Co-owner Steve Davis tells FOX 11…
“We really feel when people come to Ardy & Ed’s, I mean, they come kinda expecting the whole package.”
All of it will be gone for the year on September 1st.
Davis said, for them, deciding to close early was about putting the customer first.
“We would’ve been faced, during the month of September with no car hop service or, you know, very sporadic carhop service, and we just didn’t feel that was the right thing to do for our customers.”
Most of Ardy & Ed’s workers are in high school or college.
As summer winds down, Davis says many are trading in their skates for cleats.
“When it comes to the high school kids or college students, the activities they have while they’re going to school are so demanding that often it doesn’t leave them the opportunity to work much.”.
And the closer school gets, more workers are forced to call it quits.
Some of them are moving.
“I’m going to La Crosse for college; it’s my first year – I’m going to be a freshman, but I have to get all my stuff going and get ready to go,” said White.
State law prevents some, like Staerkel, from working past 7 p.m. once school starts.
“Honestly, I don’t really mind it. I think I like the number of hours that I get, and I think it works out, ‘cause then I can still get to do fun stuff too, and I don’t have to completely dedicate my life to my work right away, you know?”
Davis says hiring enough workers for the summer gets harder every year, but he also says many of the same employees come back when Ardy and Ed’s re-opens after winter.
“We’re like a family!” said White.
Even though they’re closing early this season, they aren’t closed just yet and, overall, the owner says it’s been a great 2019 season.
