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
697–720 / 756
Rice Bowl Restaurant sign, Merced, California

Diner sign, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

Peking Garden sign, Spokane, Washington

Oriental Gardens sign, Princeton, Illinois

ABC Chinese Restaurant sign, Kingman, Arizona

Lo's Chinese Food sign, Kingman, Arizona

Kong Wah Chinese Restaurant sign, West Hollywood, Florida

Virgie's Mexican Food sign, Grants, New Mexico

Burger Stop sign, Spokane, Washington

Applebee's Restaurant sign, Yuma, Arizona

Outback Steakhouse sign, Yuma, Arizona

Gust Half Beer-Pizza sign, Glendive, Montana

Campus Drive-in sign, Greenfield, California

Bob's Hamburgers sign, Meade, Kansas

Bob's Hamburgers sign, Meade, Kansas

Oasis Drive-in sign, El Reno, Oklahoma

The Branding Iron sign, West Monroe, Louisiana

Revana Restaurant sign, Bossier City, Louisiana

Wendy's sign, Flagstaff, Arizona

Blue Grass Restaurant sign, Lexington, Kentucky

Angelo's Drive-in Burger sign, Fresno, California

Bob-A-Q sign near Morro Bay, Morro Bay, California

Colonel's Catch sign, High Point, North Carolina
