THE ARCHIVE / Themes
Restaurants.
Roadside restaurants sell an anticipated experience before they serve a meal. An enormous fish, a familiar domestic shape or a carefully lettered name can give a passerby something to remember. Look for the relationship between the promise outside and the practical entrance below it. These photographs bring together restaurants of many scales, from buildings that become their own advertisements to places whose personality rests in a single sign.
756 photographs
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Martha's Motel Restaurant sign, Route 9, Lake George, New York

Picasso Restaurant sign, Route 17C, Endicott, New York

Dahm's Drive-In ice cream sign, Rts. 6 & 34, Arapahoe, Nebraska

Glade's Drive-In ice cream sign, Route 6, Spanish Fork, Idaho

BJ Drive-In ice cream sign, Route 789, Baggs, Wyoming

Dairy Deluxe Ice Cream Drive-In sign, Birmingham, Michigan

Hobo Joe's BBQ 7 antiques sign, Route 71, Springdale, Arkansas

Kream Castle Ice Cream Stand, Rt. 70, Brownsville, Tennessee

Restaurant close-up, Flintstone's Bedrock City, Valle, Arizona

Restaurant detail, Bedrock City, Rts. 64 and 180, Valle, Arizona

Dog Bark Park B&B, Route 95, Cottonwood, Idaho

Barrel Drive-In, Center Street, Douglas, Michigan

Bank, Mountain Mike's Pizza, Broadway, King City, California

Mr. B Restaurant, Allegan, Michigan

Firehouse Restaurant, Rapid City, South Dakota

Firehouse Restaurant, Rapid City, South Dakota

IHOP Restaurant, Denver, Colorado

Miner's Diner building, Bisbee, Arizona

Miner's Diner building, Bisbee, Arizona

Lewis Restaurant Gas, Sherburne, New York

Lewis Restaurant Gas, Sherburne, New York

Youngville Cafe gas, near Van Horne, Iowa

Old gas station-Taco Loco, Harlingen, Texas
