Vegetarian restaurants are becoming more mainstream and, inadvertently or not, distinctive branding and signage helps them stand out from the herd.

It Ain’t Meat, Babe

You can take their word for it, this meat-free eatery in Tokyo’s Kinshicho district is, er, as meat-free as they come. Mind you, they’re not stating It’s Delicious, only that It’s Vegetable. At least it’s not Mineral. Flickr member non-euclidean photography captured the above Taiwanese restaurant’s front facade and sign in June of 2008.

Pot Pies?

Best thing about the Herbal (not “Horrible”) Pizzeria? When calling in an order, you never have to specify “no anchovies, please”. That said, what the heck is an herbal pizza? Try the Scarborough Fair, topped with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Looking ahead, this shop’s already got a running start on the budding CBD-infused pizza sector. What’s more: they work with Gold Bee to ensure that they only use the finest CBD oil to infuse into their slices of pizza goodness! Goodbye ham & pineapple, hello hemp & pineapple express! Flickr member Jeff snapped the venerable vegetarian pizza parlor in early 2011.

Oh Yah

Chicago-area foodies oughta check out this place, recommended by Flickr member Eric Allix Rogers as “still the best vegan soul food joint in South Shore.” While such glowing reviews are a good sign for any restaurant, this one has some bad issues with its sign. Not the tilted and/or missing letters… they evoke a certain sense of charm. Nope, we’re referring to the font used on the sign just below. Pro tip: a restaurant that offers meals sans meat should present signage sans Comic Sans.

Goulash Vegas

What happens in Budapest stays in Budapest, whether one’s Hungary or not. Welcome to Las Vegan’s, a rather inconspicuous dining kiosk that probably won’t make anyone’s to-do Liszt. Flickr member Sharon Hahn Darlin took a gamble on this cutely-named diner on the Danube in June of 2018.

Milkshaken, not Stirred

Vegetarian sushi is one of those uncomfortable conjunctions like jumbo shrimp, plastic glass and military intelligence. Still, you’ve gotta give Emeryville, CA’s Sushi Village props for advertising “vegetarian drinks”, whatever that means. We can guess what it doesn’t mean: no Bloody Marys, Moscow Mules, or anything made with Wild Turkey bourbon. Flickr member David Cohen felt intrigued enough by the concept to snap the store sign back in October of 2006.

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The Yuengling Ice Creamery not only helped the brewery survive Prohibition, it closed over a half-century after the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed.

D. G. Yuengling & Son bears the distinction of being the oldest operating beer brewery in the United States. The firm was established in 1829 by David Gottlieb Jungling, who had emigrated from Stuttgart, in the German state of Baden-Wurttemburg, just one year previously. It wasn’t always the best of times for the Pottsville, PA-based brewery, and the worst of times began just after the stroke of midnight on January 17th, 1920… the beginning of the 14-year-long Prohibition Era.

The family-owned firm was forced to employ a variety of strategies once the nation officially went “dry”. The most obvious move was to brew a range of 0.5% alcohol content “near beers”. The brewery had another trick up their sleeves, however, one which would far outlast both the dealcoholized brews and Prohibition itself.

The Yuenglings owned a small dairy, and, as they say, “from little acorns, mighty oak trees grow”. Yuengling’s Ice Cream Corporation was established, a dedicated creamery was built, and by the end of the Roaring Twenties two more facilities opened in the Pottsville area. One of them is the long-abandoned factory we’re featuring.

As the Great Depression closed in and with no end in sight for Prohibition, Yuengling’s ice cream operation expanded into the production and distribution of milk. This prompted (in 1930) a name change to the Yuengling Dairy Products Corporation.

Unlike so many other businesses, the Yuengling companies were actually thriving thanks to their dairy products (frozen and otherwise), near beers, and even a couple of branded dance halls in Philadelphia and New York City. Leave it to history to throw them another curve: on December 5th of 1933, the Eighteenth Amendment establishing Prohibition was repealed through the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment. That called for a celebratory drink… but what about the ice cream?

The fact is (or was), Yuengling’s ice cream had to be good, sell well, and make a profit – if not, the entire enterprise might have gone kaput. Thus, when the Yuengling brewery re-opened in 1933, the ice creameries didn’t miss a beat for, say, the next half century. And you thought beer and ice cream didn’t go together!

By the early Eighties, the Yuenglings faced a very different type of challenge: the family-owned and run businesses ran into age-related issues. The Yuengling younglings, if we may, weren’t up to maintaining and managing the ice cream operations. In addition, the Pottsville plants were showing their age and expensive upgrades loomed. It was time to fish or cut bait, and in 1985 management chose the latter option.

Well-regarded brands are hard to come by, and such was the case with Yuengling’s Ice Cream. In 2014, David Yuengling – cousin of the brewery’s current owner – revived the brand that now offers ten different flavors of Yuengling’s ice cream made at a new plant in nearby Orwigsburg. The featured Yuengling’s ice creamery, meanwhile, abandoned since 1985 and evocatively photographed by Joel Handwerk of Lithium Photo, is doomed to eventual demolition… and that’s a sher-bet.

You don’t have to ask permission to make your city more abundant, growing food where once there was none. Sometimes this type of urban hacktivism is obvious to passersby and thus, susceptible to interruption – like planting guerrilla gardens in vacant lots – but sometimes it can fly under the radar, with a much higher shot at success. Guerrilla grafting is one potentially sly means of making cities more hospitable to their inhabitants without relying on official avenues. All it takes is some cuttings from fruit bearing varietals, a few simple tools and a little bit of caretaking.

Why do cities so often plant non-fruit-producing ornamental versions of cherry, pear, plum and other fruit trees? Mostly for the sake of convenience and thrift. They don’t want to have to clean up after trees that might drop a lot of fruit on public surfaces like sidewalks, nor are they thrilled about any extra work harvesting and distributing that fruit might require. Many city governments, like San Francisco, consider grafting a form of vandalism.

But planting and maintaining food-producing plants can be especially crucial in communities that are euphemistically referred to as ‘food deserts,’ i.e. low income neighborhoods where groceries are hard to come by (almost always thanks to systemic inequality.) Many people who live in these areas don’t own cars, don’t have a lot to spend on food and don’t have the time to make special trips out of their way to find healthy options. These spots – rather than wealthier neighborhoods – are prime for grafting.

Tara Hui founded the Guerrilla Grafters collective when her own efforts to alleviate food deserts in the Bay Area were denied by city officials. She figured she’d just do it herself instead, joining up with fellow agricultural activists to transform existing trees into fruit-bearing trees and collect data on the project to prove that it works. The group only splices edible varietals onto ornamentals in areas where volunteers have pledged to monitor and maintain the trees to avoid problems like pests.

Want to give it a shot? You’ll need budding fruit tree cuttings, a sharp knife, ziplock bags, grafting tape, rubber bands and a few other household items. Check out this manual from Guerrilla Grafters to get started. Click to enlarge, or download (in English, German or Spanish) at the Guerrilla Grafters website.

Denny’s has been a powerhouse of fast-casual family dining for over 60 years with over 1,600 restaurants but even Denny’s has to close some time.

More than just a slogan, Denny’s famous “we never close” policy was put to the test in 1988 when all but six stores closed for Christmas. Several restaurants were unprepared by the corporate-wide closing: some had lost their keys while others – rumor has it – were built without lockable doors.

Contrast that open-door policy with the fate of closed and/or abandoned Denny’s restaurants and diners like this one in Dayton, Ohio, snapped by Flickr member vistavision in the fall of 2010. Stores like this one will never open again, at least not under the classic Denny’s hexagonal sign.

Shoreline Scar

The above abandoned Denny’s was snapped by Flickr member Curtis Cronn in early February of 2015. Looks like the crew charged with removing visual references to expired businesses, crashed airliners and so on neglected to erase the labelscar lingering on the Shoreline, Washington restaurant’s sun-blasted exterior wall. Guys, you had ONE job.

Laurel Turpitude

Denny’s wasn’t always “Denny’s”… the chain opened in 1953 with a single store in Lakewood, California named Danny’s Donuts. In 1959, the growing company changed its name to avoid any conflict with Coffee Dan’s, a Los Angeles-based chain of coffee shops. Known since 1961 as just plain “Denny’s”, the company expanded exponentially… by 1980 there were over 1,000 restaurants and diners spread across all 50 U.S. states.

The store above, located just off Route 73 in Mount Laurel, New Jersey dates from the 1970s, back when the corporate color scheme was heavily into pinks and oranges… no doubt a hangover from the psychedelic Sixties. Will the succeeding Chinese restaurant carry on that lurid theme? Flickr member John (JSF0864) captured this still-sharp-looking abandoned Denny’s in June of 2011.

Sign In Stranger

Now here’s something unusual: all that’s left of this former Denny’s restaurant in Lorain, Ohio is its main sign – the building was demolished in early 2011. What’s more, the sign (displaying Deny’s “new” logo instituted in 2001) appears to be in excellent condition having escaped the attentions of the de-branding crew. Maybe they forgot to bring a ladder. Kudos to Flickr member Nicholas Eckhart, who captured this rather bleak scene in December of 2014.

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Fish & Chips are famed the world over as THE quintessential English food so why are there so many closed and abandoned “Chippies” in their home country?

American fish & chip shops have suffered a decline as well, especially fast food seafood restaurant chains like Arthur Treacher’s and H. Salt Esquire – both the chains and the affordable stocks of cod that sustained them are pale shadows of what they used to be. Family-run chippies linger on, however, though the once-charming Porto Restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland’s seaside Portobello neighborhood is no longer them. Flickr users Dave Sinclair and Fabio Menna snapped the shop in long-abandoned and newly-abandoned states, respectively.

Dog’s Breakfast

One would hope “Helen” was able to retire from retail fish-frying with a modicum of grace when her self-titled chippie in Maidstone (a suburb of Melbourne) went belly-up. Then again, maybe Australians just aren’t that into fish & chips, what with all that “throw another shrimp on the barbie” stuff. Flickr user Warren Kirk (Westographer) captured the closed, abandoned, boarded-up and unlamented (save for a disappointed-looking dog) “Helen’s Fish ~ Chips” on a sunny December morning in 2011.

Parson’s Nose Best

As if a chippie on the High Street wasn’t Brit enough, the owners named the place “The New Parson’s Nose”… wonder what happened to the OLD one? Regardless, the sign on the window states the shop is “closed for refurbishment” and you know what that means: it’s gone like last night’s last pint of ale. Kudos to Flickr user leon S-D (littleweed1950) who snapped this pub-like former fish & chips shop in June of 2016.

Taken Away

“Over the last 40 years or so (in Australia at least) the traditional old style strip of shops in the suburbs has come under pressure from large shopping malls,” states urbex blogger David Taylor. Just wait, Dave, those large shopping malls have begun to feel a similar sort of pressure from online retailers. There’s nothing like the unique ambiance and the sit-sown dining experience of a classic Chippie, mind you. Taylor snapped the above faded Seafood Take Away in Mt Gravatt, a suburb of Brisbane.

Over, The Rainbow

Fish & Chips, Burgers, Southern Fried Chicken and so much more… how could Rainbow Spicy Kebabs, snapped in the summer of 2013 by Flickr user Robby Virus, possibly go under? Well, they COULD have prepared all of those things poorly, for one thing. It just goes to show you, a prime location in the heart of London offers no guarantee your fish & chips (& more) shop will achieve lasting success. Also, rainbows aren’t colored that way. Just sayin’.

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