The Day’s brand dates back to 1946 when Alfred DiGirolamo, known as Freddy Day, founded Day’s Beverage Company. He started off with producing fruit flavoured soft drinks and it is not clear when the cola was introduced.
Freddy Day ran the family business until his death in 1967 at the age of just 47. His widow was unable to keep the production going and so the company shut down. In 1997, however, Freddy Day’s son, David DiGirolamo, brougt all the old recipes back to life when he founded Day’s Beverages Inc.
Since 1997 Day’s is known as a low price soft drink often found at dollar stores and independent corner-stores.
Day’s Beverages has a colurful history. Freddy Day grew up as a son of poor immigrants in a depression struck Philadelphia in the 1930s. As a teenager he saw a 7Up truck parked outside a store for delivery. Young Freddy snatched two cases off the truck and ran – but not fast enough because the truck driver tackled Freddy and all the bottles got smashed in the process.
The truck driver let Freddy pay off his dept by working for him and they ended up working together for two years. Later, Freddy Day wanted to start in the soda business on his own and managed to get the rights to produce Pepsi-Cola in Philadelphia.
In 1946 Pepsi was buying back its distributorships and paid Freddy Day $66.000. With that he founded Day’s Beverage Company and ran a solid business until his untimely death in 1967.
His son David made his own career in beer distribution and co-owned a number of stores selling craft beers and sodas.
In 1996 David saw a business opportunity in producing cheap soft drinks for dollar stores and so resurrected his father’s business. Day’s Beverages is still a family business run by David DiGirolamo (known, of course, as David Day) and his two sons.
In Kenneth’s collection
I have a 355 ml can (exp. September 29, 2016), purchased 2016 in a candy store in Copenhagen, Denmark + 1 for sale or trade.