Tennessee Soda Fountain Serves Up BlueOval City-Themed Milkshake
Ford is bringing a huge investment to the city of Stanton, Tennessee, with its massive new vehicle and battery campus. In anticipation of BlueOval City going online in 2025, a local business has unveiled a special sweet with a twist — or a swirl, as it were.
On Wednesday, Livingston’s Soda Fountain and Grill in Brownsville unveiled its BlueOval milkshake, a delectable treat celebrating the development in nearby Stanton. The newest staple of the Livingston’s menu is a birthday cake-flavored milkshake complete with blue sugar around the rim of the glass, a blue-and-white swirled sucker, and no less than blue sprinkles and a cherry on top.
New BlueOval milkshake a sweet tribute to Ford
The milkshake, which got the attention of Ford CEO Jim Farley on Twitter, is the creation of owners Glenda and Jack Pettigrew. The pair are longtime Ford fans, and they aren’t shy about making that fact well known when you visit their shop. Inside Livingston’s Soda Fountain and Grill, you’ll find a case full of Ford memorabilia as well as locally made Ford pottery.
Jack Pettigrew says that the pièce de resistance in the Livingston’s collection is the hubcap of a classic Mustang. The man knows a thing or two about vintage ponies — his first car was a handsome 1968 Mustang GT convertible.
“My dad wouldn’t let me have a car until I was 18,” Pettigrew says. “I got it in December and I remember driving it with the top down with snow on the ground.”
Jack’s father was also the inspiration for bringing the soda fountain and eatery to his hometown. He’d often visit his dad — the town pharmacist back in the 1950s and ’60s — and get something from the pharmacy’s soda fountain.
Livingston’s grand opening in March marked a way for Jack to honor his father as well as his mother. He says that all the dessert recipes at Livingston’s come from her, including his favorite menu item, a delicious coconut cake made fresh daily. Sharing his mother’s flare for all things sweet allows Jack and Glenda to add a unique, personal flavor to a place he’s called his home his entire life.
Livingston’s also honors the city’s past in its own way, retaining the name of the family that purchased the building in the 1970s. Prior to it being a home furnishing store, the building served as the town’s post office from the time of its construction in 1935. Better still, it’s just four doors down from where Jack’s dad worked.
Ford brings ‘an electric shock’ to West Tennessee with BlueOval City
Photo: Ford
There’s a lot of history in Brownsville, but the future looks every bit as promising with BlueOval City on the horizon. The 3,600-acre campus will produce batteries for future Ford EVs as well as next-generation electric F-Series trucks. Thanks to a $5.6 billion investment that will create 6,000 jobs and one of the foundational pieces of Ford’s all-electric push, the air in Brownsville is one of growth and optimism.
“This something we’ve needed for a long time and it’s the right thing for this area,” says Jack. “A large number of our staff are high school students who work behind the counter. The young folks might not understand what this means for the community, but we’re excited for the positive impact this will have, between the opportunities for employment and the increase in business we expect to see.”
With Ford delivering what Jack Pettigrew calls “the electric shock that is going to get the heart of Brownsville going again,” it wouldn’t be surprising to see the streets populated with more Fords in the years to come — especially electric vehicles. Jack, a self-professed fan of muscle cars, goes as far as calling the Mustang Mach-E “very interesting.”
Things are certainly shaping up to get more interesting in and around Brownsville between now and 2025, and that should only mean sweet things to come for the Pettigrews and Livingston’s Soda Fountain and Grill.
Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.