ILLUSTRATION BY MATT LEHMAN
Whoever thought to open a drive-in across the street from Mount Hope Cemetery and call it Palace of Poison? Art Wild, a guy known for his sense of humor. He topped his little spot with a giant neon skull and crossbones. In 1947, after WWII, Americans could buy as much gasoline and meat as they could afford, so a place with burgers and carhops was bound to thrive.
And it did, with Wild at the helm, explaining his Hudson 9896 phone number as “Nine ate, nine sick” and a sign that proclaimed, “Eat here if it kills you.” The menu featured both Suicide and Murder Burgers and a hot dog with barbecue sauce, marketed as a Scorpion’s Sting.
Teens were crazy about the place, perhaps because it sounded so daring. It wasn’t, though. The restaurant hosted milk-drinking contests, for goodness’ sake. But if some Archie Andrews type could persuade Dad to give him the family Dodge Coronet and get Veronica for a date, that’d be the place to end an evening.
The joint's crowning touch? A souvenir death certificate requested by guests and personalized to say that they were “declared null, void, and all shook up,” with the cause of death something they’d consumed there—signed in faux blood.
Then Steak ‘n Shake opened a block away and became the real cause of Wild’s Palace of Poison’s demise. The restaurant shut down in 1964, having given a generation or so considerable fun.
