‘Tastes like childhood’: Craft business revives memorable GlenRock Pop brand

Cream is a dream and grape is great, but there’s more to GlenRock Pop than flavor.

For generations of pop drinkers, the name itself evokes happy memories and feel-good vibes of family parties, picnics and events, or picking bottles of favorite flavors at the bottling plant in Waukegan to create a variety pack to take home.

“It tastes like childhood,” explained Rob Gartley, who with his wife, Cindy, came specifically to a recent Gurnee farmers market for a taste of the past. “It’s been 45 years since I had this, and it still tastes like yesterday.”

That reaction is why Antioch business owner Keith Michalek is reviving the iconic regional brand and dispensing nostalgia — using the original recipes including pure cane sugar — from taps on a custom-designed trailer at farmers’ markets and other events.

“You can tell a GlenRock person because they’re already smiling,” Michalek said as customers approached his distinctive red trailer with a “Get ready to smile!” slogan and images of the familiar bottles and logo.

Any bottles on hand now are for show only. But production is underway, and within weeks bottles of GlenRock will be available at four retail outlets and about 15 restaurants for carryout.

The Glen Rock name has been around since 1887, when English immigrant John F. Powell changed the name of his Waukegan Magnesia Mineral Spring to Glen Rock Spring and began selling soda and other beverages, according to Diana Dretske, curator of the Dunn Museum of Lake County, where there is a case on exhibit with the pop still in it.

Ty Rohrer, local historian and manager of cultural arts for the Waukegan Park District, said many mineral spring companies operated in the 1890s and sold flavored soda, but GlenRock continued after the others closed.

An exact date is unknown, but Rohrer said it makes sense the formulation fondly remembered today started in the 1950s. As many as 18 flavors were produced in a 10,000-square-foot building that now stands vacant at 834 Glen Rock Ave.

Bottling ceased in 1991 and GlenRock Pop became history.

Michalek, who owns a design/marketing company, said he bought some old GlenRock bottles on e-Bay for his collection. Soon, he had enough for a case and began taking it to family events.

“I'd fill them up, cap them and people would go crazy,” he said.

Michalek said he liked the taste but missed the nostalgia of the GlenRock brand.

“Just like everybody else, I love the memories that came with it,” he said, reasoning that if much more time passed no one would care.

So he started GlenRock Beverages Inc. as a small craft pop operation.

Michalek says his small business is meant to stay that way, so don’t expect to see the revived GlenRock Pop at Walmart or Jewel.

“I want to have people be excited about something that’s special to them,” he said.

That was the case for Jan and Ken Heirrell, who remember buying it for $2 a case at the plant in the early 1960s. And for Kendrick Pope, who grew up in Waukegan and recalled pouring GlenRock root beer over vanilla ice cream.

“They’re like, ‘We came here for you,’” said Linda Michalek, Keith’s wife. “It's nice to hear all the stories.”

Bernie Traut said he came to the market for sweet corn and came upon the GlenRock trailer.

“It's just the way I remember,” he said of his first sip of GlenRock cream soda in about 50 years.