Towne Club is a local brand of soft drink produced and sold primarily in the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan. It is also sold in Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Traverse City, Tampa, Florida, Indianapolis, Indiana, Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio at one time.
History
Early history
Towne Club was founded and operated by Harold Samhat in the mid-1960s.[1] The company first started selling its pop in its own retail outlets in Detroit, known as "pop centers". It was an affordable alternative to bigger brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and often sold well in Detroit's poorer neighborhoods. The pop centers offered many more flavors of soda pop than were typically seen in grocery stores, and the pop was sold by the 24-glass-bottle wooden case. People would enter the store, grab a wooden crate, and walk around the various stacks of pop around the warehouse-type store. Customers would bring back empty bottles and cases and start all over again.