July 27, 2022

Wetzel.

In Onondaga County in Upstate New York is a county road named Wetzel Road. It’s a fairly prominent road in the area as I believe there’s an elementary school or something educational along it.

Back in the mid 1990s when I encountered my first Wetzel’s Pretzels store, probably at Disney World, I erroneously associated the chain with the roadway and got it in my head that Wetzel’s Pretzels was founded in Upstate New York. It wasn’t. It was founded in California in 1994 or so but every time I see a Wetzel’s Pretzels I think of Wetzel Road in Onondaga County. The road is in the Town of Clay, to be exact.

Now that I think about it, there may have been a Wetzel’s Pretzels at one time in Carousel Center, the huge mall that turned into Destiny USA in the mid to late 2000s. Perhaps that was actually an Orange Julius which has nothing to do with Wetzel’s Pretzels, nor educational adventures on Wetzel Road in the Town of Clay.

Enjoy your pretzel, Shelby.