A frozen waffle empire spawned the Bay Area’s weirdest car wash
The Delta Queen car wash in Campbell, Calif., March 30, 2026. Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
From SF Gate: The first feeling that courses through my veins is that of complete surrender when I turn into the Delta Queen car wash on a recent Monday afternoon.
“Oh s—t,” I say aloud as I pull in, realizing that there’s no turning back now, at least not without colliding with the Tesla Cybertruck in my wake. I quickly pick one of three lanes and lurch forward, a row of American flags dutifully billowing over my rental car.
USPS unveils Route 66 centennial stamps, born from a photographer’s 42 trips
Photographer David J. Schwartz discusses photos he has made while traveling Route 66 over two decades, during an exhibition opening in Springfield, Ill., on March 27, 2026. AP Photo/John O’Connor
From AP: SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — You’re standing in the middle of an empty highway, staring off into the fading, golden light of Arizona’s high desert. The soundtrack playing in your mind? Depeche Mode.
Industrial-leaning synth-pop strains might seem incongruous with such a vista, but it was the alternative rock band’s homage to Route 66 that seduced David J. Schwartz. With camera in hand he has made 42 trips over two decades along the celebrated highway, qualifying himself for the job of creating postage stamps commemorating the Mother Road’s centennial.
This L.A. coffee shop is hosting an art show honoring local dining culture
Photograph: Courtesy CC/Flickr/Michael Mooney
From TimeOut LA: One of Los Angeles’s most iconic diners is reopening to the public, sort of.
Beginning tomorrow, artist Gary Baseman transforms Johnie’s, the legendary Googie-style coffee shop at Wilshire and Fairfax, into a temporary exhibition space celebrating the city’s dining culture through hand-drawn restaurant menus.
Titled “Off the Menu: Dining & Drawing in L.A.,” the exhibition features roughly 40 illustrated menus from beloved local institutions, including nearby Canter’s Deli and Genghis Cohen, as well as icons like Musso & Frank Grill. Baseman drew directly onto real restaurant menus collected during years of dining around Los Angeles.
How Do You Legally Define a Diner?
What’s in a name? For some diners, an existential crisis.
From Insidehook: Guy Fieri hosts a television show about them. Tony Soprano may have been killed in one. Some, but not all, of them are open 24 hours a day. The subject of our conversation is, of course, the humble diner. As someone who came of age in New Jersey, diners have loomed large in my consciousness for many years — but it’s also true that my home state’s diners are facing a bit of an existential crisis.
The headline of a 2025 NJ.com article referred to “New Jersey’s surviving 24-hour diners,” which gives a sense of the issue here: that implies that a lot of other diners haven’t done as well. “In late 2020, in the wake of pandemic-created restaurant closures, we proclaimed the 24-hour Jersey diner was on life support,” wrote Peter Genovese. And while Genoese saw signs for optimism then, the situation for many diners has remained challenging.
Art Notes: New book showcases the beauty of American commercial art
A photograph taken in Salt Lake City is among the images in “American Celebration 2: Storefronts and Hand-made Signs,” by Ted Degener. Courtesy Ted Degener
From Valley News: Now that he’s mostly retired, Ted Degener has been spending time digging through his archive of film. He’s been taking photographs since the 1960s and only switched to digital eight to 10 years ago, so there’s a lot of material.
By last spring, he’d combed through enough slides and negatives to put together a book, “American Celebration,” consisting mainly of photographs he’d taken at festivals around the country.
I’m ashamed to admit that Degener’s book got by me. Photography is my favorite medium, and I’m especially curious about work with “America” in the title. No other art form is as closely linked to the open road and the country’s expansiveness.