Hody’s Restaurant, Sepulveda & Victory, Van Nuys, CA.
Garths Drive In, Colorado Springs, CO.
Howard Johnson’s, New Jersey Turnpike, NJ.
Soret’s Restaurant, Riviera Beach, FL.
Stephen Foster Restaurant, Fannin Springs, FL.
Helsing’s, Phoenix, AZ.
Cafe Parasol Restaurant, Torrance, CA.
Glass House Restaurant, Will Rogers Turnpike, Vinta, OK.
Castle Restaurant, Tannersville, PA.
Holly House Restaurant, Salton City, CA.
Sadly, both the Hody’s and the Parasol are gone. There is a building similar to the Parasol in Los Alamitos, CA that’s now a Panera.
The Grant’s sign looks like the Norm’s Restaurant signs in the LA area.
In Downey, CA, the old Harvey’s diner / Johnnie’s Broiler was saved and it’s a Bob’s Big Boy. It shows up in commercials (usually with the Bob’s branding hidden.) Downey also has the oldest operating Mc Donald’s with the big Speedee sign and original building. The sign needs repair.
Ate at that Parasol many times. Replaced by a Walgreens, now a Sketchers shoe store. “Round” commercial architecture was a thing in the mid-late 20th Century. Capitol Records building and two Holiday Inns were tall examples here in Los Angeles.
Unusual to see a ’56 Chrysler being used as a patrol car in New Jersey
I’m shocked there wasn’t one for Norms chain of restaurants. They are huge in California and they still look like these today.
Never seen or heard of them and I have lived here since 1966 spanning the Valley, San Diego, and the Bay Area.
Is that a Sunbeam Alpine on the Will Rogers?
I don’t think so. Note the convertible top and the rear fenders. Series 1 attached.
Is it a Renault Caravelle?
Some stills right out a “Perry Mason”, show”. Can’t help thinking the “Stephen Foster”, restaurant isn’t referring to that “Stephen Foster”.
Oh, yes it is.
There are lots of reasons why that establishment is closed, but a direct connection to Stephen Foster is likely one of them.
The Suwannee River turns out to be in that part of Florida. As in way down upon the Swanee River (aka “Old Folks at Home”). The original lyrics – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Folks_at_Home – are those I was raised with from my less than modern mother who was a big Stephen Foster fan. Something that has caused me embarrassment for much of my adult life.
The musical notes on the sign cued me in to the restaurant’s name referencing that Stephen Foster, the guy who wrote “Oh, Susanna”, “Old Folks at Home”, and over 200 other songs during his short, 37-year life. For a long time there was another, apparently unrelated Stephen Foster Restaurant in Bardstown, KY that just closed a few months ago; I don’t know if it’s named for the songwriter too.
Here’s another shot of the Florida restaurant, this one with a few Greyhound buses visiting, including a Scenicruiser. Given the age of the cars, this would have been right around the time the Rube Goldberg twin four-cylinder engines were ripped out of those buses and replaced with a proper (single) V8.
The Castle Restaurant was actually located in Scranton, not Tannersville, which is about 35 mi. away.
Improbably, the Castle’s sign appears still to be intact, even though the restaurant closed in 1995. From what I can tell, the building sat vacant for a while after the Castle closed, and then was bought by some real estate investors, who tenanted it sporadically with places like check-cashing places and nightclubs. It seems they kept the sign out of convenience, rather than anything else, but somehow it survived. I hope the building’s future owners don’t take it down!
Google StreetView link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/t1rjExFPm32EvaYU8
I think that is a Renault in the Glass House, that looks a lot like the Oasis stops on the Ill. tollway. It was long rumored, that truck drivers knew the best places to eat( whispering, truth be known, it was the ones you could turn a truck around) but Wisconsin had some of the best mom and pop truckstops, with food like mom used to make, for $3.95, AND, they filled your thermos, a $3.95 value alone today. When traveling years ago with the camper, the old man seemed to gravitate to HoJos. It was always good food, reasonable, and plenty of room for the car and trailer. Of all the restaurants I’ve been to, one stands out as the best. That was Wolfie’s Rascal House in Miami, corned beef to die for. And,,,I just happen to come from the city, Milwaukee, that practically invented the “drive-in”, so much so, producers of Happy Days thought so. “Arnold’s” was a composite of several drive-ins in the Milwaukee area.
So many cool places, hopefully most had good eats .
I used to love going to HoJo’s every month or so for the fried clams .
-Nate
I always liked the ‘streamliner’ style diners that looked like a car on a diesel long distance passenger train.Once fairly common, they seem to be on their way out,but some well preserved ones can still be found in NY, NJ, PA, DE, OH, IN, IL, WI and other states.There Is something about them that check all my right boxes.
I love all of these! I’ll bet more than a few of them had been designed by Armet & Davis. I’ve read a lot about Midcentury Modern / Googie architecture and have wanted to go to L.A. just to experience some of the examples of this style that are still standing and in use.
The Howard Johnson’s is interesting because it doesn’t have the signature orange roof. I don’t know if that was the NJ Turnpike’s design standards or an attempt to be more modern looking.The designers did use orange panels to show the HoJo identity. I was lat in a Howard Johnson in Pennsylvania in 1991 and they had already disappeared from where I lived in NY.
The Parasol reminds of the distinctive octagonal Shari’s diners in the PNW. These were supposed to be more efficient to run and had a design pat but Shari’s recent bankruptcy may have proved otherwise.