# @downinnadesert on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DdkEkNLkj99
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70864525-downinnadesert-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/d109d8c399.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-21T20:57:41.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Down In The Desert🌵 (@downinnadesert) — https://gondola.cc/downinnadesert

## Caption

The oldest place to eat in Phoenix almost ended up on eBay.

MacAlpine’s Diner and Soda Fountain started out in 1929 as Birch’s 7th Street Pharmacy, a drugstore with a soda fountain, back when McDowell Road was the edge of town. The road was dirt. Cows grazed across the street. Kids played ball on open desert lots.

In 1938 a man named MacAlpine bought it, and his name stayed on it. It made it through the Depression, World War II, and every decade of Phoenix growing up around it. The list of people who reportedly sat at that counter includes Barry Goldwater, John McCain, Governor Rose Mofford and Frank Lloyd Wright. Wayne Newton was reportedly discovered singing there.

About 25 years ago it was about to close for good, and its original fixtures were headed for an eBay auction. Monica Heizenrader and her husband stepped in and bought the building to keep it from being stripped and sold off.

Then during the pandemic her husband died. Between the loss and the shutdowns, MacAlpine’s sat closed for four years. Heizenrader and her two daughters decided to get it running again in his memory, and they did.

It is still a trip back in time inside. Scratch made burgers, sloppy joes, pies baked in house, and 99 soda flavors. Heizenrader says she has seen four or five generations of the same families sitting at one table.

But she is also straight about where things stand. Costs are up, margins are thin, and chains can outspend independent places at every turn. She told AZFamily that if people don’t come in and support places like hers, they are not going to make it.

Nearly a hundred years in, it is still there on 7th Street. Go get a soda.

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#MacAlpines #PhoenixHistory #SodaFountain #ArizonaNews #DownInnaDesert

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## Credits

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## Tags

macalpines, downinnadesert, phoenixhistory, arizonanews, sodafountain

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