The building at 901 Caroline went up in 1808 as somebody’s house. By 1822 it was a tailor shop. In 1869 a man named W.B. Goolrick bought it, and his family held onto it for the next 104 years.
The soda fountain came shortly after that. The name most of us know it by, Goolrick’s Modern Pharmacy, wasn’t filed until 1910. But by then the pattern was already set: you came in for a prescription, and your kids sat at the counter with a fountain Coke while you waited. That arrangement outlasted the pharmacy, outlasted the Goolrick family’s ownership, and outlasted most of what else was on Caroline Street in 1910.
Then, four years ago, it closed. On Friday, August 7, 2026 it opens again.
Four years of taking it apart
The restoration was handled by Jarrell Properties, the family-owned local development company, working with contractors who specialize in historic buildings. Four years is a long time for a lunch counter. It is not a long time for an 1808 structure that has survived fires, floods, and rebuilds, and that had to be substantially taken apart before it could be put back.
They documented the whole thing publicly, in a series called “Reviving Goolrick’s” hosted by their director of community relations, Joseph “Jeh” Hicks. If you have any affection for this building at all, the archive is worth an evening.
What they kept tells you what they were after. The tin ceiling tiles are original, restored rather than replaced. The hand-laid tile floor was recreated. And the barstools were custom-built at compensating heights, because the floor at 901 Caroline slants, has always slanted, and nobody involved was interested in leveling it.
The main room now seats about 50 across the counter, high-tops, and banquettes. There’s a new retail space at the back with Goolrick’s merchandise alongside work by artisans from around the FXBG area.
Why the chicken salad is a bigger deal than it sounds
Executive Chef D’Andre Sykes started out in 2017 at Fredericksburg’s Fahrenheit 132, then cooked in Nashville and Chicago, including at the Michelin-starred Elske and the acclaimed Korean restaurant Jeong. He came back here to Fredericksburg.
And what he’s doing, mostly, is making the old menu correctly. Chicken salad. Egg salad. Grilled cheese on white or wheat with chips and a pickle spear. The legacy menu rebuilt from scratch, down to the syrups and the ice cream, rather than reimagined into something different.
There’s a certain kind of restraint in that. A chef with those credentials could very easily have used a 157-year-old institution as a canvas. Instead the sodas are still hand-mixed, one at a time: Coke, cherry, vanilla, raspberry, orange, chocolate. There are egg creams, which contain neither egg nor cream. The milkshakes and malts still come in the metal tin.
The new room downstairs opening later this year
Later this year, Sykes gets a space of his own. It’s called Section 7, named for the provision of the Volstead Act that let pharmacies like Goolrick’s dispense medicinal whiskey during Prohibition. No legacy menu, no inherited recipes, in a downstairs room that hasn’t served the public in over a century.
Details are still coming on that one.
Friday’s Ribbon Cutting
Doors open at 11 a.m., with a ribbon cutting just before. The first 50 people in line get Goolrick’s merchandise. After that, regular hours are Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Goolrick’s, 901 Caroline St., Fredericksburg. Reopening Friday, August 7. Read the menu.
