Tulsa Route 66 Commission launches new grant program to restore historic sites
From KTUL: TULSA, Okla. — Route 66 is about to get a facelift.
Property owners and businesses along Route 66 have a new incentive to preserve and rehabilitate historically significant structures, as the Tulsa Route 66 Commission launches its new Façade Matching Grant Program, with funding from the Vision Tulsa Route 66 Revitalization Project.
Barry the Barley Bull has become a must-see roadside attraction
Barry the Barley Bull stands tall at the Holden family farm in Foothills County
From Mountain View Today: Livestock is a familiar sight along rural Foothills County, Alberta, roads, but what you’ll see these days at the Holden family farm is sure to cause a double take.
Pat Holden and husband Darcy Wenaas recently built Barry the Barley Bull, a massive barley straw creation that’s intended to bring a few smiles to the neighbourhood.
“I just can’t believe the reaction we’re getting,” said Holden. “I thought it was funny, but everybody just loves him.”
Step Inside Burger King’s ‘Sizzle’ Restaurant of the Future
Burger King’s new Sizzle prototype puts guest experience front and center.
From QSR Magazine: Year 2 of Burger King’s “Reclaim the Flame” promises a fresh marketing tilt and no shortage of operational and technical threads. But the gist of the chain’s progress, roughly 13 months after the $400 million plan was launched, isn’t complex, North America president Tom Curtis says. “The last year, they hoped they could invest,” Curtis says of franchisees. “This year, they know they can invest, because things are getting better.”
Curtis spoke to QSR fresh off the brand’s annual franchisee convention. One thing the company flashed on screen for operators was a next-act prototype it feels will be well worth contributing toward.
The prototype, labeled “Sizzle,” was designed not only for the evolution of Burger King, but for where the consumer has taken quick service as a whole. Two have come to market—in Marion, North Carolina, and Las Vegas.
Almond Roca celebrates tasty centennial with new replica neon sign
The original Almond Roca sign was a familiar sight in Tacoma since the 1940s; this nighttime view is from 2022. (Feliks Banel/KIRO Newsradio)
From KIRO: Almond Roca, that buttery, crunchy, chocolate-covered, almond-dusted and world-famous candy from Tacoma, is celebrating its 100th birthday next week with the debut of a new neon sign.
The centennial of the tasty foil-wrapped Northwest icon, which was originally created by Tacoma candymaker Brown & Haley back in 1923, will be commemorated at a big public party Tuesday at 10 a.m. outside the Brown & Haley factory on 26th Street in Tacoma, not far from the Tacoma Dome. The highlight of the event will be the official first lighting of the new sign.
Signs of The Times: Photographs of Roadside America by Jim Dow (1967-1977)
“Fortune Teller” Sign. US 79 & 80, Greenwood, Louisiana, 1975 Jim Dow
From Flashbak.com: Jim Dow (b. 1942) studied with Harry Callahan, Walker Evans and Minor White, all masters of black and white photography. With that pedigree you already get a hint of his style and subject matter. His views are of a raw and beguiling America. We see his photographs of signs – American vernacular signage and architecture see along the roadside made between 1967 and 1977.
Dow traveled over 150,000 miles on multiple cross-country road trips, photographing the everyday things of American culture that caught his eye. His pictures make us notice them and recognize their places in the American story.