Harman Millstream Cafe & Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ogden, UT.
Hill Top Inn Restaurant & Motor Court, Grantsville, MD.
Midway Diner, Pee Dee, SC.
Warren’s Lobster House, Kittery, ME.
C & J Restaurant, Claxton, GA.
Cook’s Fine Foods, Crescent City, FL.
Ohio Turnpike Howard Johnson’s Restaurant, Mahoning Valley, OH.
Johnson’s “Coral Inn” Restaurant, Copper Harbor, MI.
Harvest House, King Of Prussia Plaza, PA.
La Fonda, Santa Fe, NM.
Lobster House Restaurant, Beaufort, SC.
The Brahma Restaurant, Ocala, FL.
I still love old diners and road side places like this .
-Nate
Yep, & sometimes the food is good!
We ate at the Brahma when I was a kid. Special occasion place.
These are all great. The lead photo is especially interesting to me, as it seems like an early example of co-branding between the café and the Colonel.
I thought that was odd too. But apparently in the beginning (of KFC) The Colonel licensed the recipe and the equipment to be used at other establishments that then proceeded to offer Kentucky Fried Chicken.
https://groceteria.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=4856
Looks like the Colonel himself attended this restaurant’s Grand Opening in 1959.
There was at least one other Harman Cafe in Utah – there was a location in Murray as well, and when I looked up that location on Google Maps, turned out the site is now… a KFC.
In the DC/MD area, KFCs used to be co-located with a local burger chain called Gino’s (founded by Baltimore NFL player Gino Marchetti). They had signs with the Gino’s logo with the rotating Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket underneath or nearby. I didn’t even realize Kentucky Fried Chicken was its own thing; I assumed it was just Gino’s’ branding for their fried chicken. The Gino’s chain was sold to Marriott in the ’80s who converted all of them to their other brands like Roy Rogers or Big Boy. I was a bit confused when I first started seeing standalone KFC restaurants.
Here in Saskatchewan KFC was sold at the El Rancho drive-ins well into the 1970s and I also thought that KFC was sold only at El Ranchos. Although by about 1970 KFC was about all they sold, but I think you could still get a burger if you really wanted one.
Yup. I recall Gino’s. As is often the case, people developed their loyalties. I never understood Gino’s relative to McDonalds, Burger King, or even Burger Chef…the latter I put into the same category of weirdness as Gino’s. But, I wasn’t actually originally from the DC/MD area, and so what did I know?
What I do recall is that some KFC’s sold things other than just fried chicken. We used to get fried shrimp at some KFC’s in either Baltimore, Roanoke, Raleigh or maybe the DC area. I don’t recall exactly. But it was the case that I thought that ALL KFC’s sold a bucket of shrimp as well as the standard bucket of chicken. Burgers too. Perhaps I was going to a non-orthodox KFC and didn’t know it!
“Gino’s” was one of my “fav’s”! At that time, “Roy Rogers”, had “Pappy Parker’s fried chicken”.
The folks at the counter would say “hi pardner”.
The TV panel show ‘What’s My Line?’, in which panelists tried to guess the occupation of the guest, ran for many years in the 1950’s and 60’s.
This segment is from December 1963 – no one knows Col. Sanders. 🙂
The Lobster House advertises SEA FOOD STEAKS CHOPS REGULAR MEALS
What’s a “regular meal?” Is that another term for a blue plate special?
And the C&J also offers Steaks, Chops, Chicken, Seafood, and Regular Meals. Those all seem regular to me. Perhaps with a side of stewed prunes?
I love the colours of cars from the 1950s. Today we are stuck with black, white, silver and grey. One of the reasons I bought my Golf was because it is blue, which is my favourite colour.
Dear Rich, Wonderful pictures! I love these tours of Americana. Were i to be traveling in Copper Harbor, MIchigan, Johnson’s Coral Inn Restaurant would be a must. Our family name translated to English is CORAL. I note that this place sells PASTIES. My mind wandered because I have never heard this term for this. Once again, due to my heritage, this is one form of what we call BOEREG. So, now I learned a new word. However, i will smirk each time I eat this. Please see the embarrassing photo attached. Yours in mirth (and my girth), Tom
Pasties are a form of a meat pie. Beef and sometimes pork (usually ground or cubed, occasionally sliced) along with potatoes (cubed or sliced), onions and often carrots or rutabaga are wrapped in a pie crust and baked. This dish was invented in Cornwall, England and the Cornish underground tin miners and mine captians who came to the northern tier of the Great Lakes states such as “Da Yooperland” (Michigan’s UP or upper peninsula), Minnesota and also Montana to work in the underground iron and copper mines of the region brought pasty recipes with them. Pasties with ketchup (Michigan and Minnesota) or gravy (Montana) are very tasty and filling. Do you know what a Yooper 7 course dinner is? A pasty and a 6 pack of beer.
Greetings from Cornwall home of the Pasty. The ingredients should be; beef skirt, potato, turnip (suede) onion and salt and pepper to taste.
They are also a South Australian specialty thanks to Cornish miner migrants in the 1800s.
How Yoopers view the State of Michigan.
This Yooper thing is completely new to me.
Ooookkkk….
La Fonda in Santa Fe is very much alive today, as a hotel and restaurant. It was part of the Fred Harvey hotel chain, with interiors designed by Mary Colter. There is a rooftop bar (nice, but it can get windy and cold!). The restaurant serves up New Mexico cuisine.
Was just talking about “Grantsville MD”, the other day.
Warren’s Lobster House closed after the 2023 season but the property has failed to sell since then. The most recent offer fell through this past winter, and it’s now up for auction a little later this month. Just in case any CC readers want to own a lobster restaurant. 😉
Personally, I’d just want the sign. I’d figure out where to put it.
https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/2025/05/23/warrens-lobster-house-live-auction-kittery-maine/83795585007/
If you didn’t serve good food, at good prices, it was often ‘one and done’ with customers. If your food, and menu items, were not appealing. Signage being irrelevant, if regular travelling customers, knew you had a great restaurant. Novice travellers, could be lured by the eateries, with gaudy signage and decor. For regular travellers, they frequented the restaurant with the best food, service, and prices. Period.
This meek and non-descript family-run restaurant in the middle of nowhere, between Smiths Falls and Kingston, Ontario, served great food, and fair prices, for decades since the 1970’s. I believe it has always been called ‘The Junction Restaurant’. At the junction of Highway 15 and 32. Near Seeley’s Bay, Ontario.
My parents would pull in there back in the late ’70’s. Didn’t matter if it was 11:00am, 4:00pm, or 10:30pm at night. Always excellent service, and good food. With no illuminated signage. Great memories, we never forgot.
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4864063,-76.1937944,3a,75y,163.69h,80.5t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sbVSBvdWDTfGQYud9J02VAA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D9.50206181386288%26panoid%3DbVSBvdWDTfGQYud9J02VAA%26yaw%3D163.6881156631659!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDYwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Pic.
As soon as I saw the word “Pasties” on the sign for Johnson’s Coral Inn, I figured it was probably located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I was right.
I wouldn’t recognize the Mahoney Valley Howard Johnson’s if I didn’t know what it was. I remember all of them having standardized architecture (one of a few different designs) and a weathervane atop the roof.
I can’t imagine a ’59 Chevy ever looking normal, much less two of them randomly parked side by side, but I guess they once were.
We had neighbours who had two 59 Chevies, an Impala sedan they bought new and an Impala four door hardtop they bought used in the mid sixties. One of them was replaced by a new 68 Mercury station wagon just before they moved away. Their next door neighbour also had a 59 Chevy, either a Biscayne or Bel Air four door sedan. There were a lot of them around in the sixties.
I’ve never been to the USA but I so wish I could have visited when it looked like it did back then – mind you Americans probably say the same when they see photos of the UK in the ” Swinging Sixties” ,
Info on the Frontier cafe in 1950 in greeley colorado. Where my parents met and got married
Those HoJo restaurants were a welcome sight when I traveled up and down the Kansas Turnpike. They were in the median with separated parking for each direction so you couldn’t cheat on the tolls by doing a Uturn. The inside was symmetrical, with Northbound and Southbound clearly labeled on the exit doors to avoid confusion.
I cooked for a guy in Knoxville who was one of the first 3 guys to travel around the country selling the KFC equipment. You got the pressure oil fryers, the recipes, the spice blends (those were secret), and the rights to advertise the brand in your menus and on your signage.
When I met him in the late 70s he was 72 years old and was opening a barbecue place. He was a walking encyclopedia of everything related to any kind of home cooked food, especially traditional southern dishes. He started working in restaurants at age 12. We built a smoke house on the back of the building and he could make brisket and ribs that literally melted in your mouth.
He shared road stories about traveling around in big old cars selling the KFC brand, and lots of Harlan Sanders stories!
I remember eating at the Harmons Millstream Cafe in Ogden as a kid. It had a large working water wheel on the south side of the building, and if you were lucky you got seated next to the big windows!
My dad loved road trips in the 50s 60s 70s…these wonderful pictures of a simpler time remind me of him…thank you!
There used to be a handful of KFC buffets too, scattered throughout the south and Midwest. My favorites were located at: the jct of i-71 & US 35 near Jeffersonville, Ohio; the jcts of US 30 & 23 in Upper Sandusky, Ohio; and on Strawberry Plains Rd near Knoxville, Tenn. Those ones were esp big hits for truck drivers like me cuz they had parking big enough for big rigs. Sadly, COVID19 caused them to shutter their buffet setups. In fact, a LOT of buffets got knocked out by the pandemic. Thankfully, at least Golden Corral still remains!