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URI Midcentury North American Restaurant Placemats
jmclnx wrote 8 min ago:
Very nice, I got a chuckle from the one that said "How do you want your
eggs".
In the 80s where I worked, we had a large project to enhance the
systems to our plant in Ireland. So for a couple of months a team from
Ireland came here to the US to work with us.
The question "How do you want your eggs" at a breakfast place confused
them to no end. Seems at the time in Ireland, eggs only were cooked
one way, kind of like pouched. I do not know if that is now still
true.
mcphage wrote 9 min ago:
Mighty Taco used to have some pretty good placemats: [1] (most of the
way down on the page).
URI [1]: https://www.mightytaco.com/AdVault
Theodores wrote 1 hour 5 min ago:
These hark back to a time before franchises took over. Nowadays, anyone
wanting a restaurant (and customers) is obligated to make it a
McDonalds (or other well known chain). If they don't, then McBigChain
comes to town and they have no customers.
What is odd about this state of affairs is that everyone wants Mom and
Pop, family owned, unique diners, however, where do people go when the
kids in the back want their Happy Meals? You always know what you are
going to get in a chain, and that is the magic of franchising.
MisterTea wrote 28 min ago:
> however, where do people go when the kids in the back want their
Happy Meals?
Where ever the parent decides to go.
kevin_thibedeau wrote 50 min ago:
These restaurants still exist in the US, in some regions more than
others. Usually the placemats are loaded with ads for local
businesses now and less interesting.
Theodores wrote 21 min ago:
They certainly do, however, there is just a menacing progression of
these chains taking over. My parents home town in the UK used to be
devoid of chains but now there is KFC, Subway, McDonalds, Dominos,
Starbucks and some UK specific chains such as Greggs (sticky buns,
sandwiches) and Costa (coffee).
Due to the decline of the High Street, there are always independent
cafes, sandwich shops and coffee shops that come and go. These take
advantage of the spots that used to be where decent shops that used
to be. However, few of them have enough customers to last more than
a year or two.
On the surface there is more choice than ever. However, the best
bakery in town closed down as they couldn't balance the books any
more. There also used to be several fish and chips shops and they
went too, although it has to be said that there are no longer any
fish in British waters, so that is no surprise.
Retail is always in flux, however, the place is turning into a
veritable 'food desert' with a choice between junk food slop and
pretentious gentrified expense, with no middle ground.
America is different because you do get places in the sparsely
populated West where passing trade will support a diner, gas
station and general store but not a gaggle of franchised chains. If
the interstate comes to town though, you know that will change.
GJim wrote 36 min ago:
> Usually the placemats are loaded with ads
Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that is a thing in America.
Hilift wrote 56 min ago:
There was a really good "chain" in the 1960s southeast US called
Davis House (or Davis Brothers). It was a more upscale version of a
restaurant that served mainly Kentucky Fried Chicken, although there
was many other dishes.
"The restaurant was originally named Johnny Reb's
Chick-Chuck-'N'-Shake, and was sold in 1966 to A. T. Davis, Tubby's
brother, who became a franchisee of Col. Harlan Sanders' Kentucky
Fried Chicken." [1]
URI [1]: http://www.highwayhost.org/DavisBros/davisbros1.htm
URI [2]: https://mistercola.com/products/vintage-placemat-davis-broth...
jihadjihad wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
The IHOP one is great, almost looks like a poster for a midcentury
film, like John Ford or something.
CGMthrowaway wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
This is a great collection. I'd love to print up a custom one for
hosting purposes. Anyone know a supplier who makes these off the shelf?
Or will I have to work with a local print shop.
bombcar wrote 1 hour 10 min ago:
Depends on how realistic you want it to be. Even a Kinkoâs or
whatever they call it now can print on a large piece of paper and you
can get a tool to cut the edges and curled ways. But if you really
want that quasi-white newspaper feel- youâre gonna have to find a
supplier who can get you the paper.
comrade1234 wrote 1 hour 48 min ago:
Reminds me of this collection of Chinese menus in North America dating
back to 1896: [1] It was collected by a private collector in New York
then recently sold to the university of Toronto. I first heard about it
it maybe a decade ago and have been waiting for a coffee table book
since.
I would also be interested in recipes to go with the historic menus.
For example dishes with sweet and sour have changed a lot from more
liquid and vinagery to the goopy sweet mess we get now.
URI [1]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-worlds-largest-colle...
JKCalhoun wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
I've been scanning and cleaning up a 200 page book that is a collection
of "Travel Mats" that were printed during the Route 66 heyday [1].
Each focuses on a specific highway and list motel and diner stops. [1]
Example: [1] I should have it done and posted to archive.org this Fall
sometime.
URI [1]: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fww...
easton wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
Until this point I didn't know Big Tex was real and not just something
in King of the Hill. And I've been to Texas!
Guess it's time to go back.
pixl97 wrote 11 min ago:
Seeing the Texas maps without interstates was interesting too, they
make up so much of our driving these days.
bombcar wrote 1 hour 8 min ago:
[1] Has tons and tons of those-find some near your location!
URI [1]: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/
interloxia wrote 22 min ago:
The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access
from your country.
Which is what Internet Archive has as their latest scrape too.
The previous scrape worked:
URI [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250906155345/https://www.roa...
bombcar wrote 9 min ago:
The location of the Big Potato is a secret of national import!
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