Pandemic-beleaguered Mickey’s Diner surges past fundraising goal
Photo: Bert Mattson, GoFundMe.
From KSTP.com: A St. Paul landmark got heaps of help after it asked the community for a boost to get it through the pandemic.
As of Saturday night, donors had contributed $62,000 to Mickey’s Diner via GoFundMe since the page was created on Dec. 22.
The iconic art deco-styled dining car that has called West Seventh Street its home since 1939 is usually known for being open around the clock, but it had to halt dine-in service in observance of COVID-19 restrictions.
Planned rehab could be coming to historic Sunken Gardens
2014 photo of Sunken Gardens. Credit: wtsp
From WTSP 10 Tampa Bay: ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — An agenda item regarding planned rehab at St. Pete’s Sunken Gardens was raising questions for some online. So, we got them answered for you.
According to the city, its Historic Preservation Team is set to present a written notice for planned rehab during a Jan. 12 Community Planning and Preservation Commission meeting.
Are diners a dying American staple due to the coronavirus?
From WNEP 16: FOREST CITY, Pa. — January 4th was a good day for many restaurants, including Max Deli in Forest City. The governor’s restrictions were lifted, reopening the doors to welcome customers to dine inside.
Max Rosas owns Max Deli and was fortunate enough to have had a drive-thru and pickup window installed to help serve customers through the shutdowns, but the ups and downs of closing and reopening restaurants have put a strain on business.
Classic Diner Old John’s Luncheonette Is Returning to the UWS Next Month
Rendering of the revamped Old John’s Luncheonette to open in mid to late February. Old John’s Luncheonette. [Official]
From Eater/New York: Old John’s Luncheonette — a comforting, decades-old diner on the Upper West Side that closed in October amid the pandemic — is making a comeback under new ownership.
NYC restaurateur Louis Skibar, who has opened 18 restaurants in the city over the past 30 years — including both locations of Mexican restaurant Toloache, as well as Chelsea Cuban diner Coppelia — will reopen the storied uptown diner in mid-to-late February, he tells Eater New York. Expect plenty of updates to the neighborhood stalwart when it returns: Skibar will be keeping the diner’s name, but has assembled a new team to lead the kitchen and plans to refresh some of the restaurant’s old-school interior designs.
Seeing America Through Its Roadside Signs
Minot, North Dakota, 2019.
From Atlas Obscura: Think of your last road trip. There were sights, destinations, but as much as anything else, there were signs. For businesses, public safety messages, accident memorials, threats directed at outsiders, advertisements for worms, eggs, and firewood, reminders of sin (83-FOR-TRUTH), and, of course, political campaigns. In his book Political Sign, author Tobias Carroll compares the yard sign to a “kind of coelacanth, something that reached its ideal form long ago and has contentedly stayed there, not evolving because it didn’t need to evolve any further.” Yet within this unevolving form exists a world of variety and surrealism.
Portland-based photographer Brendon Burton sees the signs, too, but he’s looking for a specific species on his road-based safaris. On his road trips, Burton began to pull off to capture signage across the United States that caught his eye—mostly the hand-painted, graffitied, dashed-off, the unusually juxtaposed. Last month, he has released his first photobook, focused solely on signage: American Poetry.