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Stolen Sandwich Shop Sign Returned After 20 Years

It’s never too late to do the right thing.

Just ask Jenny O’Brien, proprietor of The Pickle Barrel sandwich shop in Montana, who has regained possession of her charming, barrel-shaped sign after it was stolen 20 years ago.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle tells the feel-good sign story in which O’Brien opened up her business one day last week and found a surprise at the doorstep – a cardboard box containing the sign along with an anonymous letter from the men who stole it.

The article summarizes the letter, which explains how the sign was swiped by two “middle aged dudes who made a drunken mistake a long time ago.” While walking home from the bars one night in 2002, they ran into two other men, who were presumably also drunk. The foursome, emboldened in their altered state, thought it would be a good idea to steal the sign.

“It has spent its last twenty years residing in the darkest, uppermost recesses of the attic above my old garage, and most recently tucked quietly in the back corner of my wife’s garden shed,” the letter reads. “My crony and I recently concluded that after all these years, it is time for the Pickle Barrel sign to finally be returned to its rightful home.”

The letter states that its writers want to stay anonymous “for obvious reasons.”

Read more at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

Signs of the Times Staff

Signs of the Times has been the world leader in sign information since 1906. Contact Signs of the Times' editors at editor@signsofthetimes.com.

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