Close to home, part 1

I've written before about Debra Jane Seltzer who travels around the country in her van named Sparkle with 4 dogs and an insanely long list of roadside objects to photograph. Reading her travel blogs have helped me appreciate roadside architecture more and really pay attention to the buildings I would normally drive right by without giving a second look. So last weekend I decided to take off on my bike and document some of the roadside architecture close to home.

I started with this coin laundry sign, not really an outstanding sign, but rare for Central Florida because it still works! We have very little original vintage neon still in operation. And this one is right down the street from me.


Next stop was the amazing Beefy King. Originally a chain of more than half a dozen eateries, the one on Bumby is the lone survivor. Here's what it says on their website: "Beefy King - The Greatest Roast Beef/Ham/Pastrami sandwich you'll ever have. Opened in 1967, and family owned, Beefy King is a true Orlando landmark. Home of "The Beefy"! This unique, sandwich shop uses meat that is cooked on-site, daily. Then, they steam the meat, the bun and wrap it in aluminum. Add some tasty spuds (tater tots), their unique barbecue sauce, milkshakes and family atmosphere, and you are destined to have a great eating experience." As a veteran Beefy King diner, I can attest to fact that all these claims are 100% true!

Just up the street, however was some mid-century architecture in peril. I've admired the details of the perpendicular rows of red blocks as I've driven past for years. On closer inspection from my bike, it appears as this vacant structure is being worked on, or perhaps even demoed.

Nearby is this mid-century office plaza with this cool Googie-like archway.

Around the corner is one of the few examples of programmatic or mimetic architecture in Orlando, (outside of the theme parks), this hot dog stand that seems to have found a home next to a vegetarian restaurant.


Just beyond that is Vega's Cafe, an Orlando institution for many years that is known for their Cuban sandwiches. A former Phillips 66 gas station, the large modernistic awning that once covered the gas pumps now provides cover for Alfresco dining.

Similar style gas station in Texas

Across the street are three giant statues in front of an Asian grocery store marking the area known as the ViMi district (Vietnamese/Mills Ave.) For excellent Vietnamese and Thai food, this is the place to go in Central Florida.


One of my favorite Chinese restaurants, Forbidden City is nearby in this mid-century structure that was once the Chic-n-Pit restaurant. Thanks to Shannon Jones for her helping uncovering the true identities of both the Pit and the Phillips 66.

Ad from Shannon Jones' 1967 phone book

Just beyond is one of my favorite Streamline Moderne structures, now known as the Track Shack. I'm not sure what the building was originally, but I'm working on it. It is widely known that the this style of architecture was influenced by the streamline ocean liners of the time, but few are this obvious!

This dry cleaner used to have wonderful neon signage. I believe one of the signs is in the collection of the Morse Museum in Winter Park and is still operational.


In a commercial area nearby I found these tasty architectural details.


I used to live next door to this 195os era bowling alley. At the time it was used as storage, with wooden lane still obvious beneath stacks of furniture. Sadly, it has not been a bowling alley for a very long time...

I lived in these 1940s era apartments with Deco details for several years. Sadly I never used the shuffleboard courts and now they have placed a picnic table smack dab in the middle of them!


While Orlando has few over-the-top, take your breath away, mid-century marvels, if one looks carefully enough, there are some little gems here and there. It's interesting what you see in your own neighborhood once you change the way you look at it!

Shopping for vintage Orlando

Last year I did almost all of my Christmas shopping online. Super convenient, I never had to leave the house and it all came to me. After a year of being inundated by weekly catalogs and spam email, I decided to venture out this year. In search of gift for the missus, I snuck out of Kilby Creative headquarters early and headed down Bumby. 

The Bumby family was one of Orlando's original old familys and I worked in the Bumby building, one of Orlando's oldest, when I was at Church Street Station. The road named after them, passes by their old homestead and some of Orlando's best remaining mid-century relics – Beefy King and The Plaza Theater.

Beefy King has great sandwiches and incredible tater tots which I think they call "Potato Pups." There used to be about a half dozen Beefy Kings in the area, today only the Bumby location remains. I love their logo – a bull with a crown on his head – but am disappointed that they haven't repaired their sign since Hurricane Charley knocked a hole in it.

The Plaza Theater, just across the street, has one of the better signs in town, and it actually works. I'll upload some video of it one day to show it's mesmerizing rotation. They have started painting the building to promote whatever show is in production. The murals for "Little Shop of Horrors" were a bit over the top, but the latest, Michael Andrews (Orlando's own Dean Martin wannabe), is somewhat more appropriate.

My shopping destination was what I think is now called the Colonial Marketplace, site of the former Colonial Plaza, which was Orlando's first or second mall. When I first moved to O-town, over twenty years ago, the mall still existed, barely. It was so dead that I actually led a trail for a running group called "Hashers" right through the mall! 

The cornerstone of the mall was of course, the legendary Ronnie's. Nothing like it exists in Orlando anymore, although I find in ironic that on the very site is TooJays Diner, and across the street is Pei Wei Asian Diner and Jason's Deli.  All poor substitutes for what was Orlando's most interesting eatery.

When you walked in the door you were corralled into little roped-off lines determined by the number of folks in your party. The host or hostess would signal someone in the back of the restaurant how large the party was and a Ronnie's employee in the back of the restaurant would hold up menus and indicate your table. The whole operation was handled with German efficiency. The booths were those half circle kind and in the center, above the table hung a lantern that I always thought looked like it belonged on the set of the original Star Trek, maybe from the planet Klingon. Below the lamp, always, was a relish tray with cole slaw, baby Gerkins and the dreaded, most horrible food in the world, beets.

If you were there for breakfast, you got the most delicious little cinnamon rolls you ever had. And of course they were always delivered by ancient waitresses who had worked there forever.

So now most of the area occupied by the Colonial Plaza is parking lot, like much of 21st century Florida. I was thinking how cool it would be if there was some kind of reminder that one of Orlando's favorite meeting spots used to be located there. The old neon signs from the Ronnie's facade still exist. The Morse Museum has one, (working I'm told), and the History Center has another, (far from working.) Wouldn't be cool if to stick one of those neon signs up right in the middle of the parking lot? In Vegas, where there is much more appreciation for neon than there is in Florida, they have saved and re-lit vintage neon and placed the signs all around Fremont Street. Wouldn't it be great to do it here?