Wrink's Market

Glenn Wrinkle — known throughout his life and to all his customers by the nickname "Wrink" — opened the market on Mill Creek Road in 1950 after several years of working in Lebanon's small commercial sector. The choice of Mill Creek Road as the location was deliberate: the road sits just off the main Route 66 alignment through Lebanon, providing easy access for through-travelers without putting the market on the most heavily-trafficked commercial stretch, and the surrounding Mill Creek and west-Lebanon residential neighborhoods provided a stable local customer base independent of highway tourism.

Wrink's market opened with a relatively standard small-town-grocer business model: packaged grocery staples, fresh meat from a small in-store deli, basic produce, beer and soft drinks, ice, and a handful of road-traveler supplies like cigarettes, candy, and small first-aid items. The in-store sandwich menu was added within the first few years of operation and quickly became the most-talked-about feature of the business — the combination of hand-cut deli meats, fresh-baked bread (delivered daily from a local Lebanon bakery in the original decades), and the friendly counter service produced sandwiches that were notably better than what surrounding Lebanon and Route 66 options provided.

Wrink operated the business as a continuous owner-operator from 1950 until his death in 1991 — 41 years of personal counter service. Across that period, the market became one of the genuine community anchors of west Lebanon. Generations of local families grew up shopping at Wrink's; multiple decades of Route 66 travelers stopped in and remembered the visit; and Wrink himself became one of the more recognizable Lebanon characters of the late 20th century. His passing in 1991 was a substantial local event and the market sat briefly closed before being reopened under new ownership that has continued to operate in a recognizably continuous manner.

The sandwich menu is the main reason most travelers stop at Wrink's. The deli counter offers a relatively small but consistently well-executed selection of made-to-order sandwiches built on fresh bread with hand-cut deli meats — the classics are the ham-and-cheese, the roast beef, the turkey-and-Swiss, the bologna sandwich (a notably unfashionable choice that's still a daily order from local regulars), and the BLT in tomato season. Sandwiches run $7 to $11 depending on size and meat choice, with chips and a drink available as add-ons.

The breakfast menu is the other significant draw and runs from the 6am opening through roughly 10am. Standard offerings include biscuits and gravy (the consensus best item), egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwiches on biscuits or toast, breakfast burritos, hash browns, and coffee. Breakfast prices run $4 to $9 per item. The breakfast crowd is heavier on local-customer share than the lunch crowd; many west-Lebanon residents have a daily or weekly Wrink's breakfast habit and the 7-to-9am window is the most active local-customer period of the day.

Beyond sandwiches and breakfast, the deli sells hand-cut meats by the pound for travelers stocking a cooler or for local customers picking up dinner ingredients. Cold cuts, ham steaks, bacon, sausage, and small selections of fresh-ground beef are usually available. The packaged-grocery aisles offer the standard small-town-grocer selection: canned goods, bread, chips, beer, soft drinks, ice cream, ice, basic cleaning supplies, and a small produce section. The selection is enough to assemble a basic picnic, restock a road-trip cooler, or buy genuine grocery essentials, but it's not a full supermarket and travelers looking for a wider selection should plan to use a Walmart or larger grocer in Lebanon proper.

The single most consistent visitor reaction to Wrink's is some version of "this is what an actual small-town market looked like before chain consolidation killed them." The atmosphere is genuinely period — the linoleum floors are worn but clean, the metal shelving is original to multiple decades, the deli counter has the standard mid-century glass front, the lighting is fluorescent rather than designed for Instagram, and the wall decorations are a mix of period photographs, Route 66 memorabilia donated by previous customers, hand-lettered specials signs, and various community-bulletin-board postings about Lebanon-area events.

The counter staff are consistently friendly and reasonably patient with travelers who want to chat about Route 66, ask about Lebanon attractions, or take photographs of the interior. Photographs of the building, the deli counter, and the interior layout are explicitly welcome and the staff are used to the routine. There's no formal Route 66 tour or interpretive program — Wrink's is a working market rather than a tourism operation — but the staff will answer questions and point travelers toward the Munger Moss Motel, the library museum, and other Lebanon stops.

The clientele on any given visit is a roughly even mix of local Lebanon regulars (who tend to know each other and the staff by name), Route 66 through-travelers (who tend to be more visible due to camera equipment and slightly different dress), and miscellaneous Lebanon-area workers stopping in for breakfast or a quick lunch. The combination produces a notably authentic atmosphere that no amount of designed tourism programming could replicate.

Wrink's is open Monday through Saturday from 6am to 6pm and is closed Sundays. The 6am opening is genuine — the breakfast crowd starts arriving promptly when the doors unlock — and the 6pm closing is also generally enforced, though the staff sometimes accommodate late arrivals who need a quick sandwich on a Route 66 evening drive. The Sunday closing is a generational holdover from the original Wrink-era operating pattern and has been maintained by subsequent ownership; travelers planning a Sunday Lebanon visit should plan dining elsewhere.

Parking is freely available in the small lot adjacent to the building and on the surrounding Mill Creek Road shoulder. The building is easily accessible from the Munger Moss Motel area (5 minutes east) and from Bennett Spring State Park (about 25 minutes west via Highway 64). The deli counter and tables are not designed for large groups — Wrink's works best for parties of 1 to 4. Larger groups should plan to grab sandwiches and eat elsewhere, perhaps at one of the picnic areas around Lebanon or at the Route 66 Museum's library facility.

Visit time is typically 20 to 45 minutes — order at the deli counter, wait the few minutes for the sandwich to be assembled, eat at one of the small tables or take it to go, browse the packaged-grocery aisles briefly. Travelers also using the visit as a road-trip cooler restock should add another 10 to 15 minutes. The market accepts credit and debit cards, though cash is still the locally-preferred payment method.

The natural Lebanon Route 66 day plan includes a Wrink's stop as the lunch anchor: morning at the Route 66 Museum at the library (45-60 minutes), lunch sandwich at Wrink's (30-45 minutes), afternoon at Bennett Spring State Park or onward Route 66 driving, and a return to Lebanon for the twilight Munger Moss sign photography. The combination produces a notably well-balanced Lebanon day that includes museum context, working-business immersion, outdoor recreation, and iconic neon photography.

For travelers on tighter schedules, Wrink's is a viable quick lunch even on a compressed Lebanon stop. The sandwich-and-coffee combination takes 20-30 minutes total including ordering, eating, and a brief browse of the interior. A quick Wrink's stop paired with a quick Munger Moss sign photograph produces a meaningful 45-to-60-minute Lebanon stop within a longer Route 66 driving day.

Looking beyond Lebanon, Wrink's fits naturally into the broader Missouri Route 66 small-business survival story — alongside the Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Shelly's Route 66 Cafe in Cuba, the Elbow Inn at Devil's Elbow, and the Igloo Restaurant in Carthage. The combination of these surviving operating businesses across Missouri's Route 66 corridor produces a more substantive Mother Road experience than the museum-only versions of the route. Wrink's place in this canon is notably distinguished by its market-and-deli (rather than restaurant-only) format.