T
he classic Toot’n Totum building shape is unmistakable. Not the new 5,000-square-foot stores with drive-thrus and bright graphics and grab-and-go food, but the legacy ones. The ones built on arterial streets across the city. The ones with rectangular footprints, a simple pitched roof and a fake chimney on the side, where a generation of locals bought candy and soft drinks and more in the 1970s and 1980s. These buildings are unmistakable.
Some of them have been torn down and refreshed in recent years. A few still exist as classic Toot’n Totum locations. But many of them have become other businesses entirely—with new signage and new interiors and, still, the same easily identifiable shape. To celebrate the company’s 75th birthday, we decided to create a photo-essay of local businesses which clearly used to be Toot’n Totums. We didn’t find all of them, but the fact that so many exist across Amarillo tells a story about how omnipresent this locally owned convenience store chain has been in this community.
