Rochester NH’s Martin’s Drive-In Was So Much More Than Just Ice Cream

Do you remember when Rochester's Old Milton Road was like an 'ice cream super highway'? The loss of Martin's Drive-In still stings years later.

All that remains here at the junction of Flat Rock Bridge Road and Old Milton Road is a small gated corral in front of the Cumberland Farms. Well, that, and a whole lot of memories.

The bright florescent lights that shown on the classic red lettered 'martin's - A Family Drive-in Restaurant' (the lowercase 'm' is not a typo) are long gone now, razed after their final season back in 2014.

My folks were taking my nephews out to eat at The Lone Oak last night and for some reason when somebody mentioned they were getting onion rings, that familiar empty feeling hit me once again.

It is my strongly held opinion that there will never be a better onion ring made in the entire universe than the onions rings that Martin's mass produced for decades.

Just the right amount of salty, greasy, oniony goodness. AND they'd often fuse together in the cooking process!

If you were quickly out of onion rings, (which happened to me quite often), you could ask your unsuspecting parent or sibling if you could have just one more of theirs and BOOM!

An easy way to snap up two or three with no effort. The perfect crime.

It's funny because in the spirited debate of Lone Oak vs. Martin's, my family and I were always Team Lone Oak.

Yet, as the years roll on from that fateful day in 2014, I find myself missing Martin's more and more.

Thanks to the wonderful age we live in, you don't have to look far to see it in it's heyday.

However, the onion rings will never be replicated.