The Ballad of the Big Hat

June 11, 2009 • 12:10 am • POSTED BY Jim Walls

I know someone who owns one of those ubiquitous “Signs by Tomorrow” shops. I imagine the signs are affordable, and strip mall small business owners probably spend as much time there as they do their local Kinko’s or Staples. The signs are pretty utilitarian, of course: plain, plastic signs with plain, plastic typefaces, and—for a few extra bucks—some clip art with a steaming cup of coffee or shamrocks or something. They get the job done, but if I were building a legit business, I’d work as hard as possible to upgrade to some real signage before too long. Real, handmade, handcrafted, handpainted–whatever. Just so I can feel the hand of the artist in there somehow. Great sign design is virtually a lost art.

There was a day and an age where even fast food restaurants (ESPECIALLY fast food restaurants) took great care in crafting signage to lure travelers in off the byway. Now, the joint with the best burgers in all the land (Five Guys) throws up soulless signage that makes them look like a boardwalk dollar store on the verge of bankruptcy. I know you take a lot of pride in your fries, fellas, but how about fixing up the place a little?

So it was with a heavy heart that I learned that the Arby’s in Folsom, PA (known as a landmark to my wife and I as “Big Hat Arby’s”), closed its doors forever last week, and mercilessly tore down its self-aggrandizing 1000-gallon hat sign. I should have seen it coming when they started selling Fajita Flatbread Melts.

This thing was almost bigger than the store itself. When I was a kid, the words lit up in sections to draw you down the sign, until the blinking “is delicious” drove the oh-so-simple point home. Copywriting at its least convincing, made most convincing through some neon acrobatics. Over time, the sign stopped animating, then whole words stopped lighting up, but it was still a comforting presence along MacDade Boulevard. I remember driving past a similar Big Hat in Santa Monica back around 2001 proudly displaying a sign reading “thanks everyone, you saved the hat.” I imagine some sort of citizen’s group launched an a counteroffensive to save an endangered Hat, and I remembered hoping my Hat back home was never threatened by the same wrecking ball. Sadly, corporate must have stripped ours down in the cover of night. Or else I would have been out there like Tank Man, bravely clutching two sacks of French Dips (a secret menu item if you know the handshake).

Big hat, you will be missed. As for the curly fries, horsey sauce, and jamocha shakes, I’ll see you at the Arby’s in Norwood. The one with the plain sign.

Props to Flickr user army.arch for the photo. Check out his fantastic Flickr set of 900 classic signs here. And if you’ve got a Big Montana-like hankerin’ for 137 Big Hat shots, look no further than an entire Flickr group dedicated to said Stetson.