Of roadside coffee pots, cups and shops: Here's a perky post for National Coffee Day

I hope this installment of the Retrologist is good to the last drop!

Happy National Coffee Day! To mark this perky occasion, I’m sharing sensational signage featuring coffee pots, cups and shops (from the era when “coffee shop” didn’t mean Starbucks, but rather, a homespun, diner-like experience). Here is where you can find these special places.

Enjoy!

Of Pots …

The Coffee Pot, Bedford, Pennsylvania

Behold The Coffee Pot, the aptly named example of programmatic architecture along the Lincoln Highway in Bedford, Pennsylvania. It remains a requisite stop on America’s first coast-to-coast highway.

It opened in 1927, serving initially as a service-station luncheonette, designed to compel you to pull over and fuel up your car, your body, and maybe even your soul. In the era when the road trip was a novelty and shops wanted to pocket those tourist dollars before they rolled by, architecture needed to be novel as well. And soon we had big ducks, big shoes — you name it.

The Coffee Pot eventually served its last cup, and preservationists saved it from demolition and moved it across the street to its present location. You’ll have to bring your own coffee if you hope to have a cup there these days, but I reckon the sight of the building is jolting enough! [MAP]

Mickey Coffee Pot Marker, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, there’s an even older big coffee pot! Please admire the Mickey Coffee Pot, a 7-foot-tall tin wonder. Mickey refers to the last name of two brothers who built the pot in 1858 to advertise their tin business.

If Bedford’s Coffee Pot first got the attention of motorists in the 1920s, the Mickey Pot inspired horse-and-buggy drivers to pull over 60 years earlier! [MAP]

Hansen Good Coffee, Oakland, California

Hansen Good Coffee, a wholesale coffee business founded in 1894, is a gem of Oakland, California. I love the steam painted on the wall. [MAP]

Coffee Ern’s, Parker, Arizona

We stick with coffee pots and head to Parker, Arizona, where this beauty promotes the restaurant Coffee Ern’s, which dates to 1968. I can't speak for the coffee but the sign perked me up. [MAP]

Sapp Bros., Clearfield, Pennsylvania

We visit the Sapp Brothers truck stop in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. The is the easternmost location of a chain that extends, mostly along I-80, all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah. On my drives west on I-80, I look forward to spotting the coffee pot in the distance, with its promise of roadside reinvigoration. [MAP]

Of cups …

Mel’s Diner, Phoenix, Arizona

Mel's Diner in 2018 and in 1976, as seen in the opening credits of the sitcom "Alice"

Well, kiss my grits!

Fans of the 1976-85 sitcom “Alice” will get a kick out of visiting the real Mel’s Diner in Phoenix, Arizona.

Back in 2018, on behalf of my former employer Antenna TV, where I ran social media, I visited with Emmanouil Stivaktakis and his friendly team.

Mel, Vera, Alice and Flo had just stepped out — well, we’d like to think they did, anyway!

So Mr. Stivaktakis and the gang showed us around.

The diner has existed since the 1960s, opening originally as Lester’s Diner.

The diner was chosen in the 1970s to represent Mel’s Diner, and a shot of the iconic tilting coffee-cup neon sign briefly appears in the opening credits.

By then it was called Chris’ Diner, but the word Mel’s was swapped in when the footage was filmed.

Interior scenes, however, were shot in the studio in Burbank.

But it wasn’t officially called Mel’s until many years later.

When Mr. Stivaktakis took over in the early 2000s, he kept getting calls from people asking for Mel.

An immigrant from Greece, he’d never seen ‘Alice,’ but he quickly realized he was sitting on a television-tourism treasure.

He renamed the diner Mel’s, changing the sign.

There’s plenty of memorabilia on hand, including framed photos of the cast, a ticket stub from a 1980 episode taping, even an old script.

I had a great meal there, and a lot of fun examining the memorabilia and photographing the sign.

Next time you’re ‘just passing through’ Phoenix, make sure you stop by Mel’s Diner!

Four Seasons, Bryan, Ohio

Does this sign look familiar? The same fellow who initially built what became Mel’s was behind this one, too. This beauty you see here, in Bryan, Ohio, is a Lester Bammesberger original, and like Mel’s, was originally called Lester’s.

Back in the 1960s, Lester expanded his diner empire to the temperate climes of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the one I showed you in Phoenix.

He stuck to his winning formula: His name for the diners and the same design for the signs — the tilting coffee cup with an arrow with chasing light bulbs pouring out.

Some folks in Bryan think it’s their local sign that appears in the opening credits of “Alice,” and it’s easy to see why. On a 2019 trip through Ohio, I stopped at the Four Seasons to have a look around. There were no discernible nods to the distant “Alice” heritage, and my waitress wasn’t aware of the connection.

Next time I’m in South Florida, I need to visit the Lester’s there, the last one to retain Mr. Bammesberger’s name. And the old sign is still there, too. I’m sure plenty of people down there think their sign is the one in the sitcom, too. [MAP]

Of shops …

Dot Coffee Shop, Houston, Texas

There’s something magical about the words “coffee shop,” and there’s something magical in a 1967 way about Dot Coffee Shop in Houston, which I finally got to check off my bucket list earlier this year. [MAP]