Since Reconstruction, growing up in Fredericksburg has meant going to Goolrick’s. Open since 1869, it’s the longest-running soda fountain in America.
Joseph “Jeh” Hicks, a fifth-generation Fredericksburgian, used to get a treat from the soda fountain while his grandparents filled their prescriptions at the attached pharmacy. Later, as an attorney, he’d stop by for a quick sandwich while on break from court nearby.
David Morris has a memory of shaking hands with George H. W. Bush there as a kid when the president visited Fredericksburg in 1992.
Hicks and Morris never imagined they’d one day run the place. But their company, Jarrell Properties, just reopened Goolrick’s this month after a four-year closure for renovations. The 157-year-old establishment has been serving up malts and chicken salad sandwiches again since early August.
The building that houses Goolrick’s was built in 1808. Sixty years later, W.B. Goolrick opened a pharmacy there. Unlike other lunch counters in Fredericksburg, Goolrick’s wasn’t the target of sit-ins against segregation in the 1960s— though the store did host a tribute re-enactment of those protests organized by activists in 2020.
The building has survived fires and floods, but its original details had been deteriorating for decades. For the past four years, the new owners have been documenting their efforts to restore the pressed tin ceilings and slanted tiled floor to their peak 1920s glory. They found a couple from Rhode Island to rebuild the zinc counter; a specialized company in Richmond to custom-build stools and brass accents; and an artisan in southwest Virginia to restore the ceiling.
“You come to know every wood joint and masonry detail in a building like this— where it bears, how it was assembled, where every utility runs,” says James Jarrell IV, the vice president of Jarrell Properties. The team’s nostalgia for the place means they’ve stuck with its traditional, genteel luncheonette menu: white bread sandwiches filled with chicken or egg salad, liverwurst, and cream-cheese-and-olive. Fountain Cokes and chocolate sodas are hand-mixed, as are classic egg creams and malts.
“I don’t think we could have started a new business with this menu,” Morris says, “but this is what the people wanted.”
The Jarrell team is also adding something the original Goolrick’s never had: a speakeasy-style basement restaurant called Section 7, named after the provision of prohibition that allowed pharmacies to sell medicinal whiskey. Opening later this year, it will give chef D’Andre Sykes a chance to branch out from soda fountain fare.
“The upstairs food is easy— it’s probably the most boring thing he’s ever done from a chef’s standpoint,” Morris says. “When we open up the basement, that’s when he’ll really get to stretch his legs and show off his skills and creativity.”
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
