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Local favorite Vista Drive-In is celebrating 60 years in business in 2024. Located at 1911 Tuttle Creek Boulevard, the restaurant opened in the summer of 1964 and has continuously operated ever since, making it the oldest restaurant in Manhattan.
The Vista restaurant chain was started by Charles Streeter and Martha Wreath Streeter, but they didn’t set out to be restaurant owners when they first embarked on their professional careers.
Charles, who grew up on a farm near Milford, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kansas State University in agricultural economics and taught and conducted research at KSU in the field. An interesting fact about Charles’ family is its connection to K-State being located in Manhattan. Charles’ great-grandfather, Bradley Fullington, came to Kansas from Vermont in 1856 and was one of the state’s first legislators.
In the early 1860s Bluemont Central College’s trustees offered Bluemont to the Kansas Legislature to serve as a state university. Two earlier attempts to accept the offer had failed, and Fullington is credited as having introduced the third measure in 1863 that finally established Manhattan as the home of the first land-grant institution.
Martha, a Manhattan native, also attended KSU and majored in home economics and minored in journalism. She taught home economics at various local school districts and freelanced as a writer. The Streeters lived on a farm east of Zeandale.
Charles’ sister was married to Omar Knedlik, who was the inventor of the Icee machine, which makes slushy beverages. In the early days of the new invention, Charles helped to promote it by traveling the area and visiting restaurants to pitch the Icee machine and convince the owners to purchase machines for their businesses.
This exposure to the restaurant business caused Charles to think that owning a restaurant would be more fun than sitting at a desk all day. At the time, the Streeters had been operating concessions at City Park and CiCo Park as well as at local fairs and rodeos, and so they already had some experience with the industry. Charles was able to get Martha on board with his idea of opening a restaurant in Manhattan, and they started making plans.
The Streeters owned land west of Tuttle Creek Boulevard, which was outside the city limits at the time. City commissioners approved annexation of the property in March 1964, which would become the location of the restaurant. In coming up with a name for the restaurant, according to Vista’s website the Streeters considered calling the restaurant “Oasis,” and then they thumbed through a dictionary and saw “vista” and thought “vista” was a better fit for the restaurant’s hillside location that once had a meadow view.
To construct the building, what was described as a “major excavating project” was necessary to carve out a large enough area from the hillside for the restaurant and associated parking. Over 11,200 cubic feet of dirt was moved, and the excavated bank at the rear of the property was 32 ft. high. The building was a turquoise, metal-framed structure with an angled roofline, and when the restaurant opened in the summer of 1964, it was Manhattan’s only food establishment with a drive-thru.
Also located on the site is Vista’s iconic neon sign, which is topped by an eight-pointed star and includes the words “Vista Hamburgers” adjacent to a large, orange lighted chevron that functions as an arrow directing customers to the restaurant. After World War II, many Americans embarked on road trips, and the roadside architecture that developed to accommodate travelers tended to be exceptionally eye-catching to lure them off the highway, and Vista’s brightly colored neon sign is a classic example of this type of design intended to entice diners to stop for a bite.
In 1964, Vista’s menu featured cooked-to-order hamburgers made with fresh ground beef, fish, shrimp, pie, a tossed salad, a full line of dairy products, and drinks, which of course, included Icee drinks. Vista also offered a “basket,” which included a sandwich, fries, and a salad and was a precursor to today’s “combo meals” offered by many other restaurants.
The Vista Drive-In was so successful that the Streeters expanded to other communities as the years passed, opening restaurants in Topeka, Lawrence, Emporia, and Great Bend, and opening a second location in Manhattan, known as “Vista Villager,” at 429 Poyntz Avenue. Later, there were other Vista locations in Manhattan in the Village Plaza Shopping Center and the Manhattan Town Center Mall.
By 1976, plans were in the works to replace the original restaurant with a new, larger and more modern building. The new building was erected on the north side of the same lot, which required more excavation of the hillside to create enough room for it. Creating a new site for the building allowed Vista to continue operations from the old building until the new one was completed.
The new steel-framed restaurant included an exterior of limestone and stucco, with some of the exterior panels imported from Belgium. The 3,800-square-foot building cost $300,000 to construct and was designed by J. Trevor Lewis of Emporia, KS. The contractors were Hunter and Lundberg of Manhattan and Keating Electric of St. Marys. The grand opening for the new building occurred in January 1977. The old Vista building was donated to Sunset Zoo to be used as winter quarters for animals and as a food preparation area. In 1987, a sunroom space was added to the south side of the building, which provided more room for additional seating.
Over the years, the Streeters have been recognized for their restaurant and business skills. In 1982, Charles was inducted into the Kansas Restaurant Hall of Fame, and Charles and Martha were jointly inducted into the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association (KRHA) Hall of Fame in 2007.
As the years passed, Vista’s operations transitioned to the Streeters’ son Brad and his wife Karen, and today, grandsons Andy and Matt are also involved. Andy is the general manager, and Matt manages the technology side and the Vista food truck. Brad has also received recognition and was honored as the Restaurateur of the Year in 1994 by the KRHA.
Charles Streeter died in 1984, and Martha passed away in 1997, and both lived long enough to see their restaurant idea that seemed better than a desk job be successful and thrive. Sixty years later, Vista’s tasty food items keep customers coming back and have made Vista a community favorite. In a 2000 article in The Manhattan Mercury when Brad and Karen Streeter were looking ahead to celebrating the 40th anniversary, Karen also attributed part of the restaurant’s longevity to tradition. According to Karen, people establish a tradition of coming to Vista, then they bring their kids, the kids grow up and keep coming back, and so the tradition continues. Reportedly, another local tradition is taking a first date to Vista. Mitch Holthaus, who is the announcer for the Kansas City Chiefs’ Radio Network, told Brad and Karen he took his wife to Vista for their first date, and there are surely many other couples whose marriages started with a date at Vista.
Recently, Vista had 30 seconds of fame when its exterior was shown in an episode of a TV series. Somebody Somewhere is a series on Max, which is set in Manhattan and stars Manhattan native Bridget Everett. While the bulk of the filming takes place in Illinois, each episode showcases scenes filmed in Manhattan to give the show authenticity, so it’s no surprise that a longstanding Manhattan institution like Vista would be featured in an episode.
The Vista Drive-In building was surveyed in 2022 as part of the Manhattan Post-War Modernist Survey and was identified as potentially eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, though the building’s age is just shy of meeting the general requirement that eligible properties be at least 50 years old.
Vista’s neon sign is the original sign from 1964 and turned 60 in 2024 along with the restaurant business.
Since opening in 1964, Vista has established a solid legacy of great food and customer service, and with a third generation of the Streeter family involved with daily operations, there’s no doubt that Vista will continue for many more years to come.
Reprinted with permission from the Manhattan/Riley County Preservation Alliance’s October 2024 newsletter, Vol. 30, Issue V.
