Unscaled uncooked fish, ashtray pot pie. I actually took this a while back so I assume Mama’s Soul Food is a microbrewery now.
Atlanta, GA
Lee Street. Spirograph city. I love those crazy gear shapes, the self-imposed tightness of space. It’s like each item is vacuum-packed, when really there’s plenty of space to spread out on that wall. Close-value color pairing is working,
(image by T. Goggin)
Jackson, MS
Bailey Street, Jackson, Mississippi. Chicken, sausages, fries, classic steam and asterisks. Without context, the lines could indicate they are falling fast. The panel to the left says you must be 25 or older to enter, an odd choice.
Nashville, TN
Big burger in a small space. And it’s a squirmy one, with three layers of meat and FOUR layers of lettuce and a ton of tiny mushrooms maybe. Bacon is another tricky thing to paint. Love the handling of the ice cream cone — the dots, the lines. Below is the other side of the same place. There are a lot of signs that make the claim of the “biggest” burger available within a certain region. This might be the first example of onions being shown as lovely naturalistic rings. This burger has only one meat and two layers of lettuce, but it’s got a lot of personality.
Nashville, TN
According to the text you can get ribs and catfish, but the mischievous chef is also pushing a lot of apple, grapes, parsnips and a wedge of some kind of cheese. That looks like almost too much to carry at once.
Pearl, MS
Typically schematic sno-cones. You see them all over the country, always janky, barely thought-through. But I love the simple dark gray and green with super light scattered letters and ubiquitous asterisk elements. Especially endearing is how the one sno-cone has a special bond with the window frame. Auch, and the tight design of the front of the establishment, the play of greens and whites. Pretty classy. Pig lips, please.
Jackson, MS
Jackson, MS. I feel half-tipsy already looking at that painted sign. The steeply tilted pool table, the sloppy drunk floating head and glass. Curious choices are made regarding the layering of cue sticks, rack, burger image and shark image. Possible the burger and shark were there first. All the imagery presumably represents things you’ll see inside Dot’s Lounge, which raises questions about the shark. With all due respect to the rules, that wall is begging to be loitered against. Ubiquitous asterisk flourish.
(Photo by Ashleigh Coleman)
Monterey, TN
This old woman (you can see her gray bun) (behind the brown and green bun) is struggling to carry a gigantic hot dog. One wonders if the hamburger sprouted hairy man legs, or if a man was carrying it and it engulfed his torso. Either way he’s not in a position to help. An unsettling grouping.
Tupelo, MS
“Arsh taters,” you can hear the accent. Irish, or white potatoes, as opposed to sweet potatoes, that’s old school. Pretty low effort, as produce signs tend to be, the shapes forlorn, but touching, especially with the tiny purple car on the window sill. (photo from D. Fortner)
El Paso, Texas
Nashville, Tennessee
As mentioned before, that texture of brick and cinderblock does nothing for a painting, but is that the Nashville skyline with reflection in the Cumberland River? Nice touch. The ice machine should move around the corner. I think I’ll add a category called “Landscape/Cityscape” in the hopes others arise. (photo by J. Eichman)
Chino Valley, Arizona
Lake Lure, North Carolina
I’ve been stalling on posting “cut-outs” because I find them lackluster and hard to get enthusiastic about them. But enough cut-out food signs have entered the archive that one feels obliged to give them due representation. Dull though they may be. They appear more in rural agricultural areas. At least that is the working theory; let’s see if it bears out. (photo by A. Sebrell)
Twin Rivers, North Carolina
New Orleans, Louisiana
This Dante-esque pot of crawfish is brought to life by a festive splatter of scalding viscera. The huge claws at the top imply that the crawfish masses are being boiled by a giant evil crawfish, the Punisher. Those two crawfish that are trying to escape can just forget about it; like the damned in this Fra Angelico painting from the 15th century, they will be paddled back in.
(Terpsichore & St. Charles Ave.)
Nashville, Tennessee
The food takes a back seat in this little vignette. She doesn’t appear to like the way he’s looking at her, what with his work boot all untied. He didn’t come here just for that plate of smears and empty glass. Oh, or may he’s already finished and she’s bussing the table. That may explain his look of satisfaction, and untied boot.
(photo by John Baeder)
Pecos, Texas
Knoxville, Tennessee
There are a number of signs that might fall into a new category: Frontal. They tend to have a macho and confrontational message. Italics and claims of greatness. Get your smokes and your burgers and sit right here in the window, but don’t expect any special treatment. The stacking here reminds me of the 80’s video game classic “Burgertime.”
Asheville, North Carolina
Tupelo, Mississippi
Tennessee (location unknown)
New Orleans, Louisiana
That sandwich reaches the vanishing point. I was giving a presentation about the Hand-Painted Food Signs Archive recently and my neighbor from across the street came to the talk. He has a collection of photographs of signs using superlatives. This one would work for both collections.
(Chartres Ave.)
Natchez, Mississippi
Ozona, Mississippi
Well, there are those asterisks again. Why is that a go-to embellishment all over the country? Where do we learn that?
Ozona, Mississippi
Popcorn, being brought to our attention by a pickle. I enjoy how the original image has been preserved by whomever was rolling on a fresh coat of white paint. This is begging for some popcorn to be spilt to complete the trompe l’oeil.
Ozona, Mississippi
Lumberton, North Carolina
Lumberton, North Carolina
Natchez, Mississippi
West Asheville, North Carolina
Lebanon, Tennessee
Hope, Arkansas
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
The strokes that make up the crustacea are well-practiced; the turn of each shrimp back is believable, not just a half-moon, but with shrimp-like inflection, and in a single stroke. How did the painter learn that stroke, I wonder? It’s so region-specific. And the same facility is not apparent in the lettering. Not a criticism, just pointing it out.
Calhoun City, Mississippi
On Hwy 9, just north of town. I pulled over to take a photograph of this sign and as I was getting back in my car, a woman came running out to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing. I said I was taking a photograph of the food sign. She said: “You’re not the guy from the insurance, are you?” I looked at my old volvo full of art supplies and said “No ma’am, I’m not, I just like paintings.” She looked at me like she was sure I was lying.
Ozona, Mississippi
In the context of the cinderblock concession stand, the text might not be necessary, though an act of generosity nonetheless. The chips read visually as eggs, three-dimensional somehow, even though there is no modeling, maybe because they stand upright instead of stacked. The actual drop of the white wall paint over the nachos means this painting has been preserved. Just making an observation.
Baldwin, Georgia
This is one of the first photos I took back in 2004 for what would eventually become this Hand-Painted Food Signs Archive. It is/was painted on a billboard on Interstate 985 near the Chattahoochee National Forest in North Georgia. An admirable shadow under the food block. The five-tined fork was thrust into that chunk of food cube and next will be forcefully jammed into a wide-open man mouth.
There are hundreds of food signs in this ever-growing Archive. They have not been posted publicly or properly analyzed, but will be, starting… now.