A&W root beer..

While drinking an A&W rootbeer in the break room, a fellow worker asked me.. I wonder what the A and W stand for. I suggested initials, but had to look it up for myself. Here is an excerpt from thier site

One hot day in June of 1919, in Lodi, California, an entrepreneur named Roy Allen mixed up a batch of creamy root beer and sold the first frosty mug of this delightful beverage for one nickel. Now, seventy years later, A&W Root Beer is the world's number one selling root beer and is still made fresh daily and sold at hundreds of A&W Restaurants.

Allen purchased the formula for his root beer from a pharmacist in Arizona. To this day, the unique blend of herbs, spices, barks and berries remains a proprietary secret.

With the success of his first root beer stand in Lodi, Allen soon opened a second stand in nearby Sacramento. It was there that what is thought to be the country's first "drive-in" featuring "tray-boys" for curb side service, opened up.

In 1922, Allen took on a partner, Frank Wright, an employee from his original Lodi location. The two partners combined their initials - "A" for Allen and "W" for Wright and formally named the beverage, A&W Root Beer, Three units were opened in Sacramento, then on to other northern and central California locations and to the states of Texas and Utah.