Mobile culture revs up as more Las Vegas businesses go ‘drive-thru’

Melissa Schorr

Saturday, Sept. 6, 1997 | 11:10 a.m.

Walking is strictly for tourists.

Let them stampede the Strip. Leave us to our air-conditioned cars, getting out, maybe -- and only if we're feeling particularly energetic -- to stroll to our mailboxes.

This is a city where only the rare man turns to his missus to suggest a leisurely stroll around the block.

Signs even prohibit the act, with a little stick man caught in motion behind a large, red slash.

Walking is for stairmasters, treadmills. For heaven's sake, keep it behind four walls!

How often do you pass a pedestrian and wonder where the heck they're going, what they're thinking.

In fact, according to UNLV engineering professor Shashi Sathisan, assistant director of the Transportation Research Center, there have been "wild estimates" that less than 1 percent of all trips in Las Vegas are by foot.

This is facilitated by local businesses, who have -- excuse the term -- stepped up efforts to provide all the services one would ever need without ever having to turn off the ignition.

Take, for example, Starbucks. Once upon a time, the ubiquitous coffee house actually frowned on drive-throughs, considering it the domain of fast food chains.

The Seattle-based coffee magnate must have thought itself too urbane, too cosmopolitan for the drive-thru, the staple of suburbia.

Now, though, the company has seen the light. The green one, that is.

Starbuck's two-year old location at Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard, its only local drive-through, was creaming the competition -- itself.

So last month, Starbucks opened a second Las Vegas drive-thru in Summerlin, one of only 15 in the country.

"There is a demand for drive-thru here in Las Vegas," points out Alyse Tenney, a local publicist for the coffee company. "With so many entertainers in Las Vegas, many don't want to get out of the car and get mobbed," she says, citing Brooke Shields and Andre Agassi as frequent users.

Others may need something a little stiffer to get them through I-95 traffic.

Like, say, Valium or Prozac, available at all nine of Walgreens' new drive-thru pharmacies, which entered the Las Vegas market within the past year.

"We get letters from customers -- especially parents of small children, who don't have to bring them inside -- thanking us," says Michael Polzin, a Walgreens spokesman.

Other motorists can make use of Henderson's seemingly politically incorrect "Drive-In Liquor Store" to pick up a six-pack.

And those who still haven't mastered eating and drinking while weaving their stick shift through traffic can make use of the drive-thru cleaners.

Mel Shapiro, owner of Al Philips, a local chain of cleaners, claims the idea for the first drive-thru in Las Vegas was his, back in 1966, which he debuted in his Maryland Parkway store which. In its heyday, he claims, says, it was "the busiest cleaning store in the world."

"This is before McDonald's had a drive-thru," he claims. "I feel foolish, I should have franchised it."

And for clothes beyond salvation, motorists can make drop-offs at the Goodwill drive-thru, located at its two retail stores and three trailers around town. "It makes people become regular donors," says president Steve Chartrand.

A quick stop for cash at the drive-thru bank of your choice, or it's over to the First Class Pawn & Jewelry shop on Rancho Drive and Washington Avenue to hock that priceless memento.

The drive-thru window, open for less than a year, has been so successful that owner Michael Mack plans to have two lanes on his upcoming superstore, opening next spring.

"The drive-thru sees a lot of first-time pawners," he says. "That person that you wouldn't normally see in a pawn store."

In other words, customers embarrassed to be seen patronizing the business they're patronizing.

Then of course, there's one thing left to do in Drive Thru Las Vegas: lose the money, over at the Imperial Palace's sports book -- the oldest and only drive-thru on the Strip -- or the Fiesta's "Sports on the Run."

"It's our good deed for our locals," says Jay Kornegay, Director of Race and Sports at the Imperial Palace. "Some come in pajamas first thing in morning, a lot are workers before they go home. We get a lot of taxi drivers."

Kornegay also points out the drive-thru to handicapped and elderly motorists, for whom walk-in services are more of an effort.

So who's left? If you're seen getting out of your car, actually putting foot to pavement, will you be considered hopelessly antiquated? A sucker? Admirably retro?

"Drive-thru culture," Kornegay explains, "is not because people love their cars -- it's because they don't want to get out of them."

How true, you think, as you dust the cobwebs from your lap, flex your accelerator muscles and drive off into the sunset.