My older brother's mother-in-law once owned a delicatessen in Arizona. It had an oddly shaped dining area, and I remember when they were in there repainting, after they had bought it, she turned to her husband and said, "Father, we need to find an old juke for that corner. I'll paint, you shop." And would you believe it, there was one listed in the classifieds--he went down and picked it up the next day!
They quickly realized two things: the old 45s that were in it were so much melted ick; and they didn't know enough about music to handle filling it themselves. They contacted a company that serviced jukeboxes, and a man came out every week and changed the music around. I remember her explaining to us that the company's policy was that each jukebox they serviced had to have the top 25 from that week's Billboard in it, and when a song rotated out of that list, the technician would look at the record carefully, and if it was still getting a lot of play, they'd leave it there for a while. The rest of the box was filled from a preselected list of the owner's choosing (i.e. rock, country, pop, etc...) and if the owner didn't like a certain song on the list, they could have it removed the following week when the man came to service it.
The music was one song for a dime, and three for a quarter, and they had a special slug they kept in the cash register that allowed you to pick as many songs as you wanted to for free. The songs would keep playing until someone fed real money in. They held their grand opening in March of 1979, when I was 11, and I've linked the song I listened to endlessly. My sister-in-law had just had a baby, and my mom took me out of school for six weeks because she wanted to be down there to help out. I ate lunch nearly every day at that deli, and I played the same song so much that the guy who serviced the box finally mentioned it to the owner. My brother got embarrassed that I was playing the same song over and over on the slug (I figured who cares! we were the only ones in there in the afternoons before the nearby high school let out) and started carrying around a roll of quarters so he could feed my habit. I think he figured since we were getting our food for free, I might as well pay for that music.
The last time I listened to that jukebox was the summer when I was 17--I was in Phoenix visiting for a week, and they had sold the deli, which was going to be razed to make room for a big box store. When I walked in, she handed me that slug, and said, "I think you'll find that your song is still on there--I never let them take it off, since I figure you paid for it when you were a little girl." And it was there, along with all the New Wave, and the Hair Bands ;)
My brother died a long time ago, and his mother-in-law died earlier this year, but I have really fond memories of eating pastrami sandwiches (extra potato chips, but no pickle on the side) and listening to my song while yakking with my brother. He was a sweetie--he listened to that song endlessly with me, and he never, ever complained. And yeah, I still love it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-k4-L6GAjE