Label
Brown Derby Coffee Shop
1950s
Collection of Adriene Biondo and J. Eric Lynxwiler
Attached to the formal and famed dining hall of the Brown Derby restaurant on Vine at Hollywood, was the hoi polloi Brown Derby coffee shop. Opened in the 1950s when quick, casual dining became fashionable, the coffee shop expressed the style of the period with a nod to Googie roadside architecture. Its squat, neon pylon supported mid-century script channel letters on its north and south face. The distinctive typography was saved from the wrecker’s ball by a collector after the restaurant’s closure in 1985. This is the first time the neon Coffee Shop sign has been seen publicly since it was removed from the building.