Notable Restaurant Signs of 2024

AN ATTRACTIVE SIGN that compels curiosity should be as much part of a restaurant’s identity as the food it serves and the ambience it offers. Illuminated and not, crafted from varied materials using different methods, these five signs reflect the diversity of players in the restaurant world and the cuisines they provide.

Ramen Romp

When he read about a new restaurant being planned, Ted Neelands, DBM Signage & Branding (Chattanooga, TN), cold-called the two owners and landed the job for Attack of the Tatsu’s signage. He used the owners’ Nashville Food & Beverage Creative Agency style guide to consult for designs, then went to Identity Custom Signs (High Point, NC) for fabrication. Using an SDS channel bender and MultiCam router, the wholesaler crafted a projecting aluminum sign with 1-in. push-through acrylic faces and channel letters, plus a lighted awning sign backed with plex faces. Signarama of Chattanooga (Chattanooga, TN) used an Elliott L65 truck and ladders to install the signs.

Seafood Shoebox

When St. Armand’s Oyster Bar newly moved into Sarasota, FL, other customers in the area referred them to local sign company SpeedPro Affinity Solutions. The restaurant already had a logo and a general design concept, recalls SpeedPro owner Steve Rowe, for which the shop crafted a shoebox top and frame, then put all of the electrical wiring behind the stand-off backer, which enables a halo effect alongside the halo-lit channel letters. Using an Elliott bucket truck, SpeedPro installed the frame on the wall and the shoebox on top. “A very nice design incorporating different looks to the sign,” Rowe says.

Café Credible

Caffe Aldo Lamberti has been a client of Jeffrey Chudoff, owner of Fastsigns of Maple Shade (Maple Shade, NJ) for 40 years. When the café was looking to replace their sign, the signshop used a crane to install new metal faces onto the existing cabinet, then created a saddle system to mount digital displays on the lower area, which previously housed changeable copy boards. They fabricated a picture frame to surround the centered displays. The project took one month, including permitting, from start to finish. “The place is well known and often used as a landmark,” says Chudoff. “Association with this group helps credibility.”

Stonewall Install

Brown Graphics (Dallas) has created signs spelling “Provecho!” for several of Gloria’s Latin Cuisine restaurants, but the Upper Greenville Ave., Dallas location stood out as a very difficult installation. Going off the client’s designs, Brown Graphics used their Computerized Cutters Accu-Cut XP Series Model 4F8F CNC router and faux bronze grained vinyl on ⅜-in.-thick, pin-mounted laminated acrylic. According to Kevin Obregón, this sign measures over 16 ft. in width with two 8-ft.-long elements, but the studs needed to be 2-6 in. to be stable. After 4.5 hours of burning several masonry drill bits through thick stone, “The finished look was fantastic on the stone wall and the client adored it!” Obregón says.

Hip Partnership

For many years Atchley Graphics (Columbus, OH) has worked with the national chain restaurant Piada Italian Street Food, which contacts the signshop every time it establishes a new location. The client’s in-house team provides the designs for every location, Atchley Graphics prints the graphics on wide-format digital roll-to-roll and flatbed printers, which are a mixture of HP Latex and UV-LED, then finishes the graphics using Summa flatbed digital cutters and laminators. According to CEO and owner Derek Atchley, installs are typically completed in a day or two. “They have great ideas and we love the symbiosis between our two firms,” Atchley says.