The building at 133 S. Second St. has had at least three names. It has sold pills, groceries, hardware, penny candy, phosphates, burgers and beer. It has been a pharmacy with a doctor's office upstairs, a soda shop with a museum inside it, and a full-service restaurant with a bar and gaming. Since late 1929, one thing in the room has stayed the same through all of it: the marble-top soda fountain.
That fountain will soon have its newest keepers. Route 66 News reported on Oct. 30 that Steve and Casey Claypool expect to finalize the sale of Docs Just Off 66 toward the end of November. Amy and Jeremy Hampton and their family are expected to take over after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year, so the Claypools' time behind the counter comes down to about two more weeks.
The Claypools Asked for One Thing Before They Go
The Claypools' announcement, as Route 66 News quoted it, was a thank-you more than a goodbye:
In the meantime, please stop in, share a memory, and let us thank you in person. When Amy and Jeremy begin their journey, we hope you'll welcome them with the same love and support you have shown our family.
They also wrote that Amy "is already a familiar face" to people who have lived in Girard their whole lives, and that she brings years of industry experience. They said the two of them will stay around to help with the transition.
The sale was a long time coming. The Claypools put Doc's on the market in April. Casey Claypool called it a "difficult" decision in a Facebook post that Route 66 News covered on April 17. She wrote that the business "deserves an owner-operator; someone who can give it their full time, energy, and daily attention." The same post opened with a line in capital letters: "DOCS JUST OFF 66 IS NOT CLOSING." Doc's stayed open through seven months on the market, and it is still open now.
Casey Claypool is also executive director of the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway. That helps explain why the last few years at Doc's leaned so hard on the building's past.
Every Owner Since 1929 Kept the Fountain
Each time the business changed hands, the new owners reworked almost everything except the fountain. The history page on the Doc's website traces the chain:
- March 7, 1884. Lewis C. Deck and B.F. Clark buy the drugstore. Deck later becomes sole owner. The store sells drugs, groceries and hardware, and Dr. George Hill and later Dr. John Sharp see patients upstairs.
- 1918 onward. After L.C. Deck dies, his sons Lewis W. "Bill" Deck and Harry L. "Pete" Deck take over. Pills stop being rolled by hand.
- Late 1929. The brothers add the soda fountain, which the family history calls the most significant change of their years running the store.
- 1960. A third generation, brothers Bob and Bill Deck, takes over.
- 2001. Bob and Bill retire, ending 117 years of Deck family operation. A new owner buys the drugstore that July and closes it about two years later. For the first time in its history, Girard has no drugstore.
- 2007. Bob and Renee Ernst buy the building and open Doc's Soda Fountain. They invite the Deck brothers to move their pharmacy museum in beside the fountain, and the brothers agree.
- December 2021. The Claypools buy Doc's Soda Fountain, rename it Docs Just Off 66, renovate it, and reopen on June 18, 2022, with a bigger restaurant, a full-service bar and gaming.
The pharmacy itself closed in the early 2000s, so the fountain has now outlasted the business it was installed to serve by more than two decades. The 2007 reopening was built around the fountain. So was the 2022 one. According to the Doc's history page, the fountain is "still in place" after the Claypool renovation, and all the relics from the pharmacy and drugstore went on display. When the Claypools reopened in 2022, Route 66 News also reported that the fountain and the pharmacy displays had stayed.
The family history describes what greeted customers in the third generation's time: "The familiar marble top soda fountain, the original hardwood floors and older shelving and showcases." The site calls Doc's "the longest operating business in Girard, Illinois."
The White Drugstore on the Square
The building had a nickname before it had a soda fountain. The Doc's history says it was "dubbed the 'white drugstore'" because it had the only white-painted front on Girard Square.
Its spot on the map matters too. Doc's sits one block east of Illinois Route 4, which was the original path of U.S. 66 before the highway moved east in the early 1930s. The fountain went in during late 1929, while the Mother Road still ran through town. Within a few years the highway was rerouted away from it. The fountain stayed for another 95-plus years anyway, which says something about who was keeping it busy. In the Deck era it was the main weekend "hang out" for teenagers and adults alike, according to the family history.
What the Menu Says About the Building
The menu wears the history too. Several items on the current Doc's online ordering menu are named after the people and the trade that came before:
- The Deck Burger, named for the family that ran the counter for 117 years
- The Pharmacy Melt, a nod to what the building sold for most of its life
- The Big Doc and the Frisco Melt, rounding out the named lunch and dinner items
The fountain side of the menu still carries the drinks the Decks served. The online menu lists phosphates and Green River, along with floats called the Brown Cow, The Classic and the Velvet Elvis. The dessert list includes the Road Trip 66 Sundae and The Maggie Mo. Phosphates were already on the fountain menu in the Deck brothers' day.
The online ordering page lists pickup Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. Dine-in hours are posted on the Doc's website. Prices on the live ordering menu differ in places from the menu PDFs linked on the site, which are dated 2025, so the ordering page is the better guide.
A Two-Week Window, Then a New Chapter
The Claypools' final stretch runs from now until Thanksgiving week. The business they're handing over looks very different from the one they bought in December 2021. It has a full bar, gaming, an expanded dining room and, as of this spring, an outdoor beer garden that Casey Claypool described in April as "brand-new" and "ready for the season." In the same post she said the business comes with "an amazing, loyal staff who care deeply about this place."
So the Hamptons are taking over a working restaurant built around a 1929 fountain, inside a building that has done business on the Square since 1884. Each owner before them made the building their own and kept the counter. The building's history is a list of people who changed nearly everything else and left the fountain where it was.
For Girard residents, the timing is simple. Through Thanksgiving week, you can order a phosphate across the counter and thank the Claypools in person, which is exactly what they asked people to do. After that, the Hamptons start their turn behind the same marble.
At Land & Home Real Estate, we pay close attention to buildings like 133 S. Second St., where the property and the business on it are tied up with a town's history. If you own a commercial building on a central Illinois square and are thinking about who comes next, start with an honest number. Request a Property Valuation, and we'll talk through the building, its history and what it's worth to the right buyer.
