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

Turkey Roost Restaurant sign, Bay City, Michigan

Eddie's Chinese Restaurant, Lansing, Michigan

Napanoch Diner sign, Napanoch, New York

Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Meals sign, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

Coma Restaurant Lounge sign, Butte, Montana

Hofbrauhaus sign, Ogunquit, Maine

Dimitri's Fine Food sign, Roseville, Michigan

Dimitri's Fine Food sign, Roseville, Michigan

Far East Food sign, Bakersfield, California

Far East Food sign, Bakersfield, California

Far East Food sign, Bakersfield, California

Kentucky Fried Chicken sign, Marietta, Georgia

Kentucky Fried Chicken sign, Marietta, Georgia

Kentucky Fried Chicken sign, Marietta, Georgia

Gaido's Restaurant sign, Galveston, Texas

Gaido's Restaurant sign, Galveston, Texas

A & W sign, Richmond, California

El Rebozo Restaurant sign, Ukiah, California

Nan Denton's Drive-in sign, Knoxville, Tennessee

Jack in the Box sign, Santa Monica, California

Chicken sign, El Paso, Texas

Kowloon Restaurant sign, Saugus, Massachusetts
