The Guinness World Record A Famous Drive-In Just Achieved
Delgadillo's Snow Cap has always been known for doing things a little differently. Its founder, Juan Delgadillo, famously built his drive-in restaurant in Seligman, Arizona from scrap lumber explains TravelSW.com. That was in 1953 during the halcyon days of Route 66 and its roadside attractions notes the National Park Service. The opening of Insterstate 40 in 1978 would eventually siphon traffic from Seligman and the iconic American highway. But getting into Delgadillo's Snow Cap has never been easy, then or now. Not because of the crowds, mind you. But because Delgadillo added a fake door, and put two doorknobs on another, explains Roadside America. Customers may also have been put off by the apologetic sign: "Sorry, We're Open."
Humor has long been the restaurant's calling card. According to TravelSW.com, the menu famously offers specialties like "dead chicken" and "cheeseburger with cheese," alongside more standard items like malts and milkshakes. Then there are the practical jokes, Roadside America observes, like offering customers a handful of ragged napkins (to be replaced with clean ones later) or squirting them with mustard and ketchup bottles that are filled with harmless yarn. Since Juan Delgadillo's passing in 2004, per TravelSW.com, the humor has been carried on by his family.
Humor may be Delgadillo's Snow Cap's calling card, but it's no longer their only claim to fame. As of September 10, 2022, the restaurant now holds a hallowed world record and has been certified for it by Guinness World Records.
Breaking Records on Route 66
On September 10, 2022, the staff of Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-In served up 266 different kinds of milkshakes, shattering the former record for most milkshake varieties ever made, according to Food & Wine. The record took only one hour and 15 minutes to accomplish and was dually authorized by a representative from Guinness World Records and by an official chef, who certified that all the milkshakes were of requisite "consistency" and contained the proper ingredients.
The former record of 207 milkshakes was established in 2019, per Food & Wine. So Delgadillo's Snow Cap officially beat it by 69. But that's not the important number. That would be 266 ... as in Route 66, since the record-breaking achievement was sponsored by Mobil 1's "Keep Route 66 Kickin'" initiative. Route 66 News, meanwhile, reported on the event's most notable milkshake, which was made with Oreo, salsa, turkey, and root beer. Presumably, that isn't one of the 13 milkshake flavors normally on the menu at Delgadillo's Snow Cap. But as Food & Wine points out, many new flavors were created by the estimated 20 to 30 restaurant workers who made history that day.
What's next on Mobil 1's Route 66 tour? More records, hopefully. Per Business Wire, these could include a new world's biggest corndog courtesy of an Albuquerque hot dog parlor, and a world record attendance by real dogs for a movie at an Illinois drive-in. Stay tuned.