The Inescapable Wall Drug

The original store, Wall Drug now fills the whole block.

On the Great Plains, Wall Drug is inescapable. You can anticipate its arrival for hundreds of miles. 

Driving up through Wyoming, I caught my first sign on U.S. 85. Unless you completely zoned out along I-90, there is no way to avoid Wall Drug. The site had been advertised steadily since Rapid City on a series of small billboards inside private property fences along the interstate.

The constant, quirky promotion reminds me of South of the Border, a tourist trap of hotels, restaurants, fireworks, and recreation on the North Carolina-South Carolina border. 

However, South of the Border cannot tout five-cent coffee. Since the 1930s, free ice water and five-cent coffee has been Wall Drug’s hallmark. After hundreds of miles across the Great Plains, that offer must have been sweet relief for generations of travelers. 

Wall’s name comes from its location, along the north wall of the Badlands. The 800-person town draws 2 million visitors a year, mostly due to Wall Drug. Outside of its drugstore, Wall hosts a number of hotels and campgrounds, plus a small district of well-kept one-story homes. 

Wall Drug dining room stained glass

Once a corner spot, Wall Drug turned into a mall of sorts, with leather goods and all sorts of items under its many roofs. It isn’t so much a tourist trap but a collection of tourist traps that caters to almost every taste, especially if those tastes include an 80-foot brontosaurus.

I had every intention of eating here after a tour of Badlands National Park. There weren’t many options on the Great Plains, so Wall Drug was the easy choice. On a Friday afternoon, it was not especially crowded, crowds only forming when the directions on where to order food or pay for souvenirs were not especially clear. 

The dining rooms feature the largest private collection of Western art in the world. Pictures are forbidden but the scenery is fine while eating. Bison burgers were on the menu, a choice not available to early auto travelers but a welcome one in the 21st century. 

I had to try Wall’s famous 5-cent cup of coffee. I dropped a few dimes in the slot and drank a few small cups, expecting the worst. I had fears over what 5-cent coffee might taste like in 2023, almost 85 years after Wall Drug started offering cheap coffee.

The famously cheap coffee

The coffee tasted just fine. The coffee had body and flavor. It was nowhere near some of the truckstop coffee I have tasted. No one would confuse it for pour-over coffee but it served its purpose.

It felt like a bargain, even if it was a throwback, a loss leader to get people in the door. I don’t fault them. There should be some reward for long hours hurtling across the windy flats of the Great Plains on interstate highways. 

Friday's crowd inside Wall Drug was strictly for lunch. The street had cleared out when we left. Wall seemed to end abruptly a block north, where a series of grain bins loomed several stories taller than anyplace else in town. 

For one moment, Wall Drug seemed small. But it will continue to loom large on the Great Plains.

Looking north on Main Street in Wall