My mom (Who lives in Florida) and I were talking about Smaks. She found some old pictures of my sister and I in front of the Smaks at Ward Parkway.

There was a Smaks at 59th and Leavenworth road, right by Sunset Plaza. There was another on 32nd street but I can’t remember the address. I don’t remember the year but I do remember I was furious when they raised the price of their burgers from 15 cents to 19 cents, not that I stopped eating them.
 
Another KC drive in I liked was Fritz’s, I think it was far enough east that Leavenworth road turned into Brown avenue but it has to be at least 40 years since I’ve been there.

Doubt if you’ll see this but…..
I Googled Smaks because I grew up in P.V. I ate ate the Smaks in OP. Not great. Very variable. The hamburger patty was like Winstead’s, very thin. Winstead’s is heaven (with a Cherry Lime Soda). Smaks was great sometimes. But sometimes not. Hamburger could get pretty strange at 10 for a dollar. And I kid you not sometimes they used cabbage instead of lettuce.
I returned to KC in 73 and worked as a manager for Sydney Ginsberg who owned Smaks at that time. I worked at the Snooty Fox. A good steak house in a bad neighborhood that Sydney’s brother Jerry ran. They hated each other but Sydney was in fairly often checking up on Jerry. He talked about Smaks so I’m sure it was his.
(added later) I hadn’t seen all the other posts…..what memories! When I was little in the mid 50’s the was a place in North Kansas City called ‘Squat and Gobble’. Remember that? My mom would get me a huge chocolate ice cream cone for a nickle there.
 

[/h3]www.flatlandkc.org/curiouskc/question-everything/happened-smaks

 
Great history and Great Memories.  Loved Smak’s, Hasty House and Allen’s.  Never knew the connection.  Growing up in south KC, Smak’s on Wornall, Allen’s on Stateline and Hasty House at Watts Mills, simply the best! 
 

Does anyone remember a little drive-in place called “Mark 90”?  I went to Boone Elementary School and it was across the street from there on Wornall Road.  I believe it was named for the Lucky Strike Lanes bowling alley just behind it.
                                                             Sincerely,
                                                             KCJudy

 
Yes, Judy, I remember Mark Ninety quite well, at the corner of 90th and Wornall Road, across Wornall from the United Supers grocery store.  Mark Ninety sat atop the hill, with Lucky Strike Lanes just below (and to the west) on 90th Street.

I also remember Boone Elementary.  I didn’t attend school there (I lived on the Kansas side when I was in elementary school), but drove right by Boone Elementary on my way to Center Senior High School (I’m guessing you might have attended there, as well…is it possible we know each other?  I was Class of ’70.  I’d bet that we at least had some mutual friends in the area.)

Funny story about Mark Ninety.  We moved into a rental house at the corner of 91st Terrace and Washington Road, just a few blocks from Mark Ninety, in the Summer of ’65.  As my parents were unpacking our stuff that the movers had unloaded on moving day, they sent me to go pick up some burgers for dinner.  So I hopped on my bicycle and rode up to Mark Ninety.  I picked up everything and came back home and walked in the door with the food.  I mistakenly walked into the house one block down from ours (all the houses in the neighborhood looked pretty similar).  Needless to say, the family I walked in on was quite surprised, and so was I.  But I explained what happened, excused myself, and found my way to our new house a block away with the burgers in hand.  (Do that today and you’re liable to get shot.  But it was a simpler time.)

By the way, what I remember most about Mark Ninety was their tacos.  Yummmmm!!!!!
 
Incidentally, I also bowled quite frequently at Lucky Strike Lanes.  I sure wish I could find some pictures of that place.
 
Oh, and I also remember one thing about Boone Elementary School.  Even though I didn’t attend school there, they would turn the playground there into some kind of a festival each Fall around Halloween, and we’d buy tickets and go hang out there.  It was always fun.

The other drive-in restaurants in the KC area that I remember were Allen’s Drive In at 89th and State Line.  We used to stop there every day on our way to Leawood in ’58 to watch the builders build our house (the one we left several years later to the one near Mark Ninety).  For my money, Allen’s had the best cheeseburgers I’ve ever eaten.  Smaks, which I always thought was great. And there was a place called Red Barn (there was one in Overland Park, I think near 95th over near Metcalf).

Fun memories.  I left KC in 1970 right after high school and haven’t lived there since.  And I haven’t visited the area since my dad passed in ’95. 

Does anyone remember Boots Drive Inn on 87th Street in Overland Park Kansas in late 1950’s and early 1960’s?

Ahhh, the Hickory Smak was the BEST!!!  The last Smak’s in KC that I remember was in Ward Parkway Shopping Center, downstairs between the escalators.  Does anyone remember Drummer Boy on Westport Rd?  They were just down the street from the MCC Penn Valley building around 1970.

If I’m not mistaken, the first Smak’s in KCMO was on Linwood Blvd., just east of Main a ways. They featured $.19 burgers.

I remember the Smak’s on Independence Ave. Also the Bly’s Bakery…I LOVED their cookies at Christmas time. I have never been able to find them anywhere else!!! 

That was an interesting read, and I suspect similar stories played out in many other regions in the ’80s and ’90s.