The Beacon Drive-In Review

The Beacon has been a Spartanburg institution since 1946, one of the great American drive-ins, where you pull in, a carhop takes your order, and the countermen shout it down a line that never stops moving. The signature is anything ordered “a-plenty” — buried under a mountain of fried onion rings and french fries — with the chili-cheeseburger “a-plenty” the classic, washed down with a gallon of sweet iced tea (the Beacon is said to sell more tea than almost any single restaurant in America). For decades the legendary counterman “Mr. J.C.” Stroble, blind, took every order by ear. It’s loud, it’s huge, it’s gloriously excessive, and it’s pure Upstate.