Eisler Bros. Old Riverton Store

The deli case in the back of the store is the surprise hit for most travelers. Hand-sliced meats, fresh cheeses, and made-to-order sandwiches on Texas-toast or hoagie rolls run six to nine dollars and come wrapped in paper that has not changed design in decades. A classic order is the smoked ham and cheddar with a bag of chips and a glass-bottle Coke from the cooler, which you can eat on the porch while watching motorcycles pull in off the highway. The store also stocks local honey from Cherokee County beekeepers, jars of Amish-style preserves, beef jerky from a smokehouse in nearby Columbus, and seasonal produce from area farms.

The souvenir wall is curated rather than cluttered, which is rare on Route 66. You will find embroidered patches, refrigerator magnets, enamel pins, lapel buttons, route shield decals, hand-screened T-shirts, and a small selection of books on Kansas Route 66 history including titles by local author Jim Powell. Postcards are 50 cents, the lowest price on the entire route, and the store will even stamp them with a custom Eisler Bros. Route 66 cancellation if you ask at the register. International visitors often mail postcards home from the small mailbox on the porch as a souvenir of the stop.

Do not leave without a hand-dipped ice cream cone from the freezer counter. The store sells single and double scoops in waffle cones for around three dollars, with flavors that rotate seasonally but always include vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan, and a Route 66 themed swirl. On hot summer afternoons there is sometimes a line out the door, which gives you time to read the laminated newspaper clippings on the wall documenting the store's appearances in Smithsonian Magazine, the BBC, and the Cars Pixar research files when the animators toured the route in 2001.

The building is a textbook example of an early 20th-century rural general store, with a rectangular plan, a low-pitched gabled roof, a recessed front entry under a full-width covered porch, and double-hung sash windows on three sides. The exterior is painted white clapboard with green trim, the same color scheme used since at least the 1940s based on archived photographs at the Baxter Springs Heritage Center. The wraparound porch is supported by simple square posts and has a railing low enough to lean against, which is exactly what generations of farmers, truckers, and travelers have done while waiting for friends inside.

Inside, the original 1925 pressed-tin ceiling is still in place, the wide-plank pine floors still creak in the same spots, and the wooden display counters along the right wall are the same ones Leo Williams installed when he opened the doors. A black potbelly stove sits near the back, mostly decorative now but functional in winter when the temperature drops. The walls are covered in vintage advertising signs for Coca-Cola, Phillips 66, Standard Oil, Wonder Bread, and a dozen other brands that once stocked these shelves, almost all of them original to the store rather than reproductions purchased to create atmosphere.

The vintage gas pump out front is a 1930s visible-register model that pumped fuel here until the early 1970s, when the underground tanks were finally removed. It is now purely decorative but it is the single most photographed object in Kansas on Route 66, with travelers lining up to pose beside it. The small detached outbuilding to the side of the store served as an icehouse and later as storage, and the foundation stones at the rear of the lot are remnants of a 1920s auto-camp where Mother Road travelers paid 50 cents to pitch a tent for the night, predating motels in this corner of Kansas by more than a decade.

Eisler Bros. is open seven days a week, including most holidays, which makes it one of the most reliable Route 66 stops in the four-state region. Morning is the quietest time, especially before 10am, when you can have the porch and the store almost to yourself and the staff has time to chat. Midday between 11am and 2pm is the busiest stretch because of the deli rush from locals on lunch break combined with through-traffic stopping for sandwiches. Late afternoon brings motorcycle groups and tour buses, particularly on weekends from April through October, but the store rarely feels crowded because the layout is generous.

Parking is free in the side lot and there is room for cars, motorcycles, tour buses, and RVs up to about 35 feet. Larger rigs can park along the shoulder of Highway 66 in front of the store without trouble. Restrooms are inside near the deli, free to use whether or not you buy anything, which is a small detail that means a lot on a route where public bathrooms can be scarce. There is no charge for parking, no admission fee, and no pressure to buy, though almost everyone leaves with a sandwich, a souvenir, or both.

Combine the visit with the Brush Creek Bridge a mile south, which is a 1923 Marsh arch bridge and the last of its kind on Route 66, then continue north into Galena to see Cars on the Route and the Kan-O-Tex station. The full Kansas stretch from Baxter Springs to Galena can be driven in 20 minutes without stops or stretched into a comfortable half-day with photo time at each landmark. Eisler Bros. is the logical lunch break in that itinerary regardless of which direction you are traveling, and the staff will happily mark a paper map for you with the next stops down the road.