While many local places have suffered, this Lexington restaurant has thrived during COVID

In a world that seems turned upside down, one thing has remained the same: you can drive up to a car bay at the Parkette Drive-In on New Circle Road, shout your order into the call box and a carhop will bring your food out to you.

And thousands of people have done just that through the lock-down brought on by COVID-19 outbreak. Through beautiful weekend evenings and cold, rainy weekday lunchtimes, the car bays at the retro diner have been packed even though the traditional dining room and a garage space opened about six years ago have remained shuttered.

Business this spring is “actually very good,” said Randy Kaplan who is the manager at the Parkette, which he owns with his brother, Jeff.

Almost two months into the pandemic, Kaplan was relaxed, grateful and glad that he hadn’t had to lay anyone off. During a time when Kentucky has the highest unemployment rate in the country, Kaplan says he has actually had to hire people.

But on March 16, when Gov. Andy Beshear ordered restaurants — along with most other in-person businesses — to stop serving customers in person because of coronavirus, “it scared everyone,” he said. The Kaplans had gained a devoted local following with a classic friend chicken and other fast food favorites since reopening the retro restaurant in 2009 and plenty of national attention, from spots with Guy Fieri and Rachel Ray, but no one had encountered a pandemic and the future was scary.

His 27 workers worried if they’d have jobs, he wondered how his business would survive, long-time customers wondered if they’d still be able to get their fried chicken, Poor Boy burgers and shakes.

But then, “we just started getting busy.” And after that, “the community just exploded around local restaurants.” Recent visits to the Parkette is a strong indication of that. A nice spring Friday night saw the parking lot flooded with customers and the following day at 3:30 in the afternoon, almost every carhop was filled.

Although plenty of places do takeout only and have drive-thrus, the Parkette and the national franchise Sonic with its roller-skating carhops seem to be the only ones with in-car delivery systems. Sonic is rolling out a new AI-assistant to create an “ordering experience,” but Kaplan said that Parkette can’t afford such frills and he doesn’t really think it’s their style. “We don’t want to lose that interpersonal,” much of which is delivered by his wife, Kimberly whom he describes as “the best carhop Parkette has ever had,” during her 10 years on the job.

When it opened in 1951 there was no indoor seating at all. Instead, a team of all-female carhops, dressed in wool uniforms that looked modeled on hotel bellhops, sat on bleachers and ran to take orders when cars pulled into the bays. Now, there are the call boxes (modeled on school intercom systems), carhops come in both genders and the wool uniforms are long gone. With the advent of the pandemic, their attire has come to include gloves and face masks but customers can still order food from the convenience, and safety, of their own vehicle.

Some have even chosen to use the Parkette as a place to socialize at a safe distance. “Families will come in two separate cars, and they just roll their windows down,” to visit while they eat, Kaplan said. People are ordering more family meals, he said, and fewer of the messy items, like the Parkette’s Hot Brown Burger. Some sit in the car bay and eat but they are also doing a brisk take out and delivery business.

Kaplan’s changed his own eating habits a bit, ordering meals almost daily from other local restaurants. “There’s a difference between having national money behind you and just mom and pops, which is what we are,” Kaplan said, “and you have to support each other.”

But Kaplan’s eager to come out and compete again. He still uses the recipe developed by Parkette founder Joe Smiley in 1951 for the lard-fried chicken that has been flying out the door.

“I’d put our fried chicken against anyone in the country,” Kaplan said. And he’s issuing a challenge to prove it: “When everything opens up we’ll have a throw-down.”

Parkette Drive-In

Where: 1230 E. New Circle Road

Contact: 859-254-8723; theparkette.com; facebook.com/parkette.drivein

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Thurs.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri., Sat.; Closed Sun.