O Joy!!!

Confused?
Well, the O Joy was a huge part of my teenage years and I would wager only a few dedicated people even remember it.

The Valley Mall opened in 1974 and although I cannot be sure of this stat, I believe it to be the case, a tenant from the beginning was the Orange Bowl chain.
The Orange Bowl was mainly known as a pizza eatery, usually by the slice, but I don't remember eating the pizza often.
My memories of the pizza think of it as a thin, greasy pizza that might not rank well against a strong pizza today from the home pizza market like a Tombstone, DiGiorno, or Red Baron, let alone a pizza worth going out for.
But the Orange Bowl had one thing going for it for this person-something called the O-Joy.

The O-Joy was not easily slipped into any category.
It was not ice cream, it had similarities to Italian ice, but it was much thicker and better held together than Italian ice, It was not really a slushie or what is often confused with the O-Joy, an Orange Julius from the better-known Orange Julius chain.

If I had to say what it was closest to, I would say it's closest relative would be an orange juice-flavored Slurpee.
The O-Joy definitely tasted like orange juice and I would say that that there was some orange juice in it.
Often, when you buy "fruit juice" it will say something like "contains 20% juice!" or is called "a fruit drink product", but the O-Joy tasted like orange juice, not like orange soda, so I do believe at least some orange juice was in it.

The Orange Bowl was on the corner of the mall as it existed then and was located at the end that I used most with two of the three book stores nearby with Books and Things Jr. and Waldenbooks and the sporting goods store, Shipley's, none of which is in the mall today.
Since my brother and I usually went to the mall once a week (mom got groceries while we were there) and time was usually of the essence, we had maybe an hour to hang out and get our allowance spent for the week, which usually was spent on boxing and wrestling magazines and an O-Joy before we were out the door to meet our mom for the ride home.

A mall trip that my brother and I still recall to this day involved us getting bawled out from mom going from our house to the mall.
Please keep in mind that it was a good twenty minutes to get there, so this was a good ear-chewing!
As we were listening to this, a balding fifty-ish jogger was passed on the road complete with eighties headband and running gear.
Think of any eighties stereotype and you'll get the picture clearly.
The lecture continued and said jogger appeared and I blurted out "Check this guy out in heavy training for the Gavin MacLeod look-alike contest".
Brought the car down and Mom had a hard time continuing the lecture after that!

The Orange Bowl went out of business as a chain in the late 1980s never to be heard from again and I don't hear a lot of internet talk missing it as you do on other lost chains like Burger Chef for example, but I sure do.
The O-Joy was good and I think I'd still be a fan, but you never know about these things.
Tastes change and maybe it would not be as delicious today, but you cannot touch the memories.
Sometimes the important thing might not be the item, but the company you keep and the memories that you make.

Stay tuned for more mall memories eventually and stay tuned soon for the first interview of the new year!