Eugene Howard Nash

Gene Nash November 30, 1915 - May 5, 2011

Gene Nash, the founder of Gene's Drive-In on South Market Street in Redding, California, passed away Tuesday at his Anderson home, just 10 days before the drive-in's 57th anniversary. He was 95.

Gene made the drive-in the center of his life for nearly 27 years. He retired in early 1981 and handed the business over to his son Mike, who runs it today.

Nash put his four children to work at the drive-in from the day it opened in 1954. Daughters, Lynne Nash, and Carol Dyer, then in high school worked as waitresses along with their younger sister Kathleen Shipley. All wore the classic white waitress uniforms then in vogue. "We had the iconic flower hankie and the white shoes," Lynne said. "But we also had to wear hair nets. We hated that".

Mike, then in the fourth grade, started out sweeping the parking lot. He was later promoted to peeling potatoes.

They remember Gene's grand opening. It was May 15, Rodeo Day. The event drew 6,000 people, a record at the time. Redding also recorded the nation's highest temperature that day a toasty 101 degrees.

A full page newspaper ad heralded Gene's grand opening as "Redding's newest and most unusual" eatery. Four other merchants took out newspaper ads welcoming Gene's and wishing the enterprise luck.

Two hours after Gene's served it's first 19-cent hamburger and 10-cent fries, the drive-in was out of potatoes, meat, onions and buns. "He really underestimated the food he would put through the window," Lynne said. "But he was overwhelmed with the excitement of running the first fast food restaurant north of Sacramento." The Nosh's managed to hustle up enough supplies to keep opening day flow of burgers, fries and shakes going for a crowd lined up from window to street curb, until the drive-in closed at midnight.

Lynne said her father kept his sense of humor even while working 18-hour days at the drive-in. "He would always say things like "You only go home when you've got no place else to go,' or "Two can eat as cheap as one as long as one don't eat." Lynne said, "Once, when he said it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, we actually tried to fry an egg on the pavement. It didn't work."

Nash's idea of a vacation back in his working days was the occasional road trip to Reno, said Mike. They would leave at 3 p.m. Saturday and return the next morning.

Along with the strong work ethic, the Nash's' say they picked up lessons about patience and fairness working for their father at Gene's. They learned to count out change where the customer could see it.

The 19-cent hamburger eventually jumped to 21-cents, and customers would haggle over sales tax. In those days, sales tax wasn't charged if people took the food home. "People got so mad when the price went up." If there was an argument, Dad would say 'Just give it to them, the customer is always right.' That attitude evidently did not hurt Nash in the long run. The drive-in thrived, and the family moved from a cracker box house on Waldon Street to a much more spacious home on California Street right above the drive-in. That move was a proud moment for Nash, who had grown up as a migrant farm worker and had no formal business training.

As a youngster, Gene picked cotton, peaches and apricots with his six brothers and sisters around the Central Valley. The family spent the winter in whatever town they reached for the harvest season, so the children could attend school.

Gene's formal education ended with high school. He worked for a lumber company in McCloud before moving his growing family to Redding, where he hoped to earn more income by going into business. He started out delivering donuts and bread to French Gulch. Gene soon received his own delivery truck and expanded his routes into Trinity County. Gene was picking up supplies in Sacramento for his bread delivery business when he saw his first drive-in restaurant. He decided to try the idea in Redding.

Nash wasn't all business all the time. He was a top-notch bowler, hurling five perfect games. He and Mike won a city-wide tournament in the late 1960's. "They called him 'Crash Nash," Mike said.

Nash's upbringing as an itinerant laborer ingrained in him a love of travel. so after he retired from Gene's he and his wife, Donna Jewel Nash, took their RV on the road up to two months at a time. They also took extended fishing and crabbing trips.

along with his four children and wife of 20 years, Nash is survived by his brother Earl, of Missouri, and his sister Leta Konvalin, of Jackson.