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
601–624 / 756
Starlite Restaurant sign, Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Klein's Restaurant sign, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Bessinger's Bar-B-Q sign, West Columbia, South Carolina

Bessinger's Bar-B-Q sign, West Columbia, South Carolina

Jimmy's Restaurant sign, Columbus, Ohio

Cotten Patch Bar-B-Q, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Walter's Hot Dog Stand sign, Mamaroneck, New York

Walter's Hot Dog Stand sign, Mamaroneck, New York

Silver Dragon Restaurant sign, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Porky's Drive-in sign, St. Paul, Minnesota

Phil's Bar-B-Q sign, Saint Louis, Missouri

Maui Restaurant sign, Brockton, Massachusetts

The Chicken Shack sign, Waco, Texas

Chief Restaurant sign, Durango, Colorado

Colonel's Catch sign, High Point, North Carolina

Bray's Burgers sign, Hazel Park, Michigan

Pak-A-Burger No. 1 sign, Pampa, Texas

Jacoby and Son Chicken sign, Wisner, Michigan

Schell's Restaurant sign, Reading, Pennsylvania

Heine's Steak House sign, Springdale, Arkansas

Porky's Drive-in sign, Laconia, New Hampshire

Bull sign, "Prime Rib", Chittenango, New York

A & W Drive-in sign, Anderson, Indiana
