The two remaining neon signs for the long-closed Club Cafe in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, were removed Friday, according to several folks on social media who snapped photos of the dismantling.
Daniel Chavez wrote on Facebook on Friday afternoon:
So long Club Café neon signs. I’m sure you were a welcoming sight for many travelers over the years who were in need of something to eat while traveling down Route 66. We won’t forget you, but unfortunately future generations might not remember you or know where you once stood so prominently in the Santa Rosa sky. I remember seeing some of the other signs from the building roof at the dump when I was younger and asking my dad if we can get them. Unfortunately they were just way to big. Sure these two might be going to a museum and not the dump, but what good does that do for Santa Rosa or Route 66? NONE! What a shame….
SignArt in Albuquerque removed the signs. The signs are rumored to be going to a collector who will refurbish them and re-erect them in a “ghost sign” display at the soon-to-come Route 66 Visitors Center on Albuquerque’s west side. However, I’ve been unable to verify that, as there is no shortage of collectors all over the country who want such Route 66 icons.
The Club Cafe, which opened along Route 66 in 1935, closed in the early 1990s. The restaurant had been known for its sourdough biscuits, New Mexican cuisine and its trademark “smiling Fat Man” logo on signs and billboards.
The closed restaurant’s owner, Joseph Campos, held on to the property for a long time, hoping it eventually could be reopened. But he reluctantly tore it down in 2015 after determining it would have been too costly to bring the structure back up to code.
Several neon signs have disappeared along Route 66 in the last 15 months or so, including:
- Grants Cafe sign in Grants, New Mexico
- Sahara Lounge sign in Santa Rosa
- Sonrise Donuts sign in Springfield, Illinois
- Cactus RV Park sign in Tucumcari, New Mexico
- Paradise Motel sign in Tucumcari
Chavez’s sadness comes with mixed feelings that certainly will be echoed in the Route 66 community. They’re angry and hurt two longtime sights of Route 66 were removed.
However, I know of no efforts the city of Santa Rosa made to preserve those signs. Those signs, tattered by wind, sunlight and rust, probably would have crashed to the ground in ruins within the next decade without intervention.
Chavez’s story about other signs ending up in the local dump was much sadder than someone purchasing them and arresting the decay.
Johnnie Meier, former president of the New Mexico Route 66 Association and a longtime neon-sign preservationist, says the best way to prevent the disappearance of neon signs to collectors is for Route 66 cities to institute a landmark ordinance and subsequently declare historic neon signs as landmarks. The city of Albuquerque has such an ordinance in place.
Such ordinances can’t completely stop the removal of such signs, but it sets up obstacles to prevent them from being spirited away. In the end, it goes against basic property rights to prevent a transaction from a willing seller to a willing buyer.
Until other cities along the Mother Road become more proactive with such an ordinance, this will keep happening.
UPDATE: Longtime Route 66 researcher Jim Ross weighed in today:
I just posted the following comment on a thread related to the collector of Route 66 neon signs. There seems to be a rush on this person’s part to snatch up every sign he can persuade an owner to sell. I would like to see more discussion on this issue. We, as a community of sorts, have a stake in this. If I am wrong on this, tell me why. If I am right, let’s see what can be done about it. Thanks.
There is now significant alarm and concern within the Route 66 community over the continued removal of these priceless roadside attractions. As a sign collector myself, I understand that slippery slope. I have 12 signs. Most are either reproductions or were in fact headed for the scrap heap. That said, the near simultaneous disappearance of both the Grants Cafe sign and the Club Cafe signs give the appearance of pillaging. Tourists crave seeing these relics in the wild. As far as I can tell, none of the signs recently purchased were in danger of either falling down or being sold elsewhere. If there is evidence to the contrary, I, for one, would like to see it. This collector has evidently made NO effort to seek the approval of or the alliance of the Route 66 community at large, and as a result is being viewed with a sense of great angst and suspicion. He needs to come forward in a very public way and state his goals for this collection and why it is necessary to remove signs that would have continued to stand for years or could possibly have been restored in place by current or future owners. It’s bad enough that the route continues to be systematically stripped of its bridges and roadbed, now this. If this guy has so much money to blow and really cares about the route, why not recondition the signs in place? At this point I would suggest being very cautious about supporting this effort.
(Image by Daniel Chavez of one of the Club Cafe signs being taken down, via Facebook)
Once again, if they are so valuable, the buyer could afford to have replicas made and erected in place of the originals.
All these great old signs should remain in 99% of the cases in their communities!!!!
I agree with Jim, Eric and Terrence. But the problem seems mainly to be one of greed: the buyer wants all the signs he can grab and the sellers/property owners want the money. Until the sellers are convinced not to sell, more and more signs will be snatched up simply because money talks. By the way, having an ordinance like Albuquerque’s hasn’t prevented many of its signs from “disappearing” to collectors and heaven knows where else. As for the signs going to that elusive Albuquerque Route 66 Visitors’ Center, I have seen some of these signs the buyer has and they’re sitting out in the open, in a lot by the railroad tracks, and deteriorating from the sun and weather. That Center was announced in 2016 with much fanfare and political posturing with construction “hoped” to start in 2017. So far, nothing has been done at the site except for 50% of its sign falling over on the ground. There is no construction yet for this Center that’s supposed to be up and running next year.
Something townspeople should keep in mind is that as Route 66’s signs (bridges and alignments) disappear, tourists won’t be interested in stopping. Who wants to see a bare town, concrete rubble, or where a road maybe used to be? These towns that allow the grabbing of their unique connections to Rt. 66 will eventually be crying big crocodile tears about the tourists not stopping there anymore.