the.com/soda fountain

means A counter (often in a drugstore or ice cream parlor) fitted with taps and syrup pumps for mixing carbonated soft drinks, floats, and sundaes to order.

from Grew out of the late 1700s–1800s craze for 'artificial mineral waters,' when chemists tried to bottle the fizzy appeal of natural spa springs believed to be healthful. Pharmacists installed elaborate marble-and-brass dispensing apparatuses to carbonate water on the spot, selling it as a tonic — hence why drugstores, not diners, became the original home of the soda fountain. Once flavored syrups (and eventually ice cream) got added to the carbonated water, the 'medicine counter' quietly turned into a dessert bar, and the soda jerk — named for the jerking pump-handle motion used to shoot the soda — was born.