There was a time when you could have your car filled with gas, have the oil and tire pressure checked, and the windshield cleaned, and while you waited, you could go inside and have an ice cold soft drink, some salted peanuts and, in a few service stations, a cold beer.

Griffis Tire and Appliance, among the most durable Smithfield establishments of the mid-20th century, was one of those. It was the favored hangout for numerous men (women never felt welcome) who would pull up a folding chair or sit on a stack of tires to enjoy a cold beer.

It wasn’t the only service station or similar business to have an “on premises” beer license, but it was likely the first one here to obtain a license, and undoubtedly the last one as well.

Frederick M. Griffis, universally known as “Mooky,” established Griffis Tire in 1945 as World War II was ending, but he had already operated the Motor Inn Service Station for a decade prior to that. (The Motor Inn was located where Smithfield Station now sits, at the west end of the Cypress Creek Bridge.) 

In May of 1934, as Virginia was just beginning to issue licenses to what would become the state’s retail beer distributors, Griffis had applied for an “On and Off Premises” beer license for his business. He was only 19 years old at the time. Today, he wouldn’t be able to buy a beer, let alone serve one to a customer.

He must have failed to obtain the license during that initial filing because a second public notice in The Smithfield Times shows he applied again in 1936. No further notices by Griffis appear during that period, so he appears to have succeeded in obtaining the license that he would continue to hold for two different businesses in three different locations for the next four-plus decades.

When Virginians voted to repeal prohibition in 1933, the General Assembly moved quickly to set a “liquor control” policy. The state was determined to prohibit liquor by the drink in order to prevent the re-establishment of saloons, the businesses that had prompted prohibition 13 years earlier.

Only beer and wine would be sold for “on premises” consumption, and then only in restaurants. Distilled liquor would be available only in state-owned ABC stores, a business model that is still in place

A press release from the state published in the Times in May 1934 reported that 386 licenses had been issued across the commonwealth in the first month of the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) board’s existence, and another 151 were rejected.

The press release explained why many of the applications were rejected, saying “a soda fountain, or a filling station which serves only candy, peanuts and soft drinks, is not sufficient” to be classified as a restaurant.

So how did Griffis succeed in obtaining a license, probably when he submitted his second application in 1936? 

He had to convince the state that he had a restaurant, and apparently was able to do so based on the Motor Inn’s history. That service station had been consistently advertising the sale of “Smithfield Ham Sandwiches” for years, and that may have bolstered Griffis’ argument that his food offerings should qualify for an “on premises” beer license. 

Whatever the argument, the Motor Inn and later Griffis Tire became one of a few local businesses where you could legally drink on premises.

Griffis was a Smithfield native, born in 1915. He grew up here and went to work as soon as he finished high school, as did a majority of young men in that era. The Motor Inn and its successor, Griffis Tire and Appliance, were his first and last jobs — his lifelong businesses. He retired in 1979, two years before his death.

Beer was probably quite profitable, but it wasn’t Griffis’ primary business. The Motor Inn, and later Griffis Tire, were established to take advantage of the burgeoning automobile industry, and their location at the eastern entry to Smithfield provided the ideal position for such a business.

Initially, Griffis advertised “Sinclair products, auto accessories,” but in 1940 he began advertising tires, “used as well as new.” Tires quickly became one of the company’s main products. 

The other was appliances. When Griffis Tire and Appliance was formed in 1945, Mooky ran an ad promoting an Admiral Dual Temp Refrigerator. It was the year that World War II ended, and American industry was gearing up to produce modern household conveniences that had not been produced while the country needed armaments for the war.

A month later, Griffis was advertising Speed Queen washing machines, and within two years, Griffis Tire was selling phonographs and even a portable radio.

Griffis built a new service station in the 1950s that sold Texaco gasoline. The new building sat on the south side of Church Street, just across the road from the old Motor Inn site. In 1955, Griffis added tire recapping. Recap tires are rarely seen on automobiles today, but back then, when tire treads wore out much more quickly than today, they were an economical alternative to new tires. 

Griffis Tire was built over marshland and, as the years went by, it settled slowly into the mud under it. The floor sagged and buckled so that drink coolers had to be shimmed up level, and when you walked through the main store, you might walk like you’d already had enough beer for the day.

Griffis’ brother Perry worked alongside Mooky for decades, and as an added sideline, was the primary drawbridge operator for the Cypress Creek Bridge located next to the business. The bridge had a draw span that had to be opened when anything bigger than a runabout wanted to enter or leave Cypress Creek. A boater could call Griffis Tire before leaving home and arrange a draw opening, or blow his boat’s horn until someone at the service station heard it. 

Mooky or Perry, whichever one was available, would walk out to the draw control house, stop traffic, open the draw by activating an electric motor, then close it again.

When the old Cypress Creek Bridge was replaced by the current bridge in 1974, the Griffis Tire and property was condemned to make way for the bridge. Griffis moved to a building at 1410 S. Church Street (today, the home of Southside Ballet). He took his tires and his beer license with him, and remained in business until 1979, when it was sold and he retired. Perry died in 1980 and Mooky in 1981. 

He was one of the town’s legendary entrepreneurs.

 

John Edwards is publisher emeritus of The Smithfield Times. His email address is j.branchedwards@gmail.com.