Link to Street View (https://www.google.com/maps/@33.9526655,-84.1306181,3a,75y,256.16h,84.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sItfyenT-XaYOBcWWwIqymg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
I-85 near Atlanta. It's a "We Buy Gold" using the Waffle House logo. Are there any other businesses around the country (or elsewhere) that pretend to be a famous chain?
https://thronedepot.com/
Quote from: 1 on March 12, 2020, 08:26:44 AM
Link to Street View (https://www.google.com/maps/@33.9526655,-84.1306181,3a,75y,256.16h,84.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sItfyenT-XaYOBcWWwIqymg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
I-85 near Atlanta. It's a "We Buy Gold" using the Waffle House logo. Are there any other businesses around the country (or elsewhere) that pretend to be a famous chain?
I would say "pretend" is a bit inaccurate in that case. The sign
is (https://goo.gl/maps/mDE1EcTayrXhmjW1A) a former Waffle House sign that's been repurposed for a different business. They apparently rearranged some of the original letters and had some new ones created to mimimc the original look.
Along the same lines, I posted in another thread years ago that a former Borders in San Francisco had become an independent bookstore named "ODE (https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/an-ode-to-cheap-books-in-a-former-borders/)" simply by rearranging the sign's letters.
I know I've seen at least a few former gas stations where a sign which originally spelled out the brand name in separate letter tiles (https://live.staticflickr.com/2458/3754240938_7c755d2e2c.jpg) had the letters rearranged and replaced to spell out something else–much like the Waffle House example. I can't find any offhand, though.
There was a Day's Inn on the south side of Lansing MI off I-96 that got changed to an independent. (How bad do you have to be to lose a Day's Inn franchise?) They covered up (poorly) the Y with a D so then it was Dad's Inn.
I can't find it on Street View, so I don't know if it's still there or not.
Huntington WV had an Omelette Shoppe, which is the same one letter per square signage as Waffle House and Huddle House. Lost their franchise and just replaced one letter to become the truly sad abomination of the English language, Omelette Stoppe.
Went broke and is now a strip club, but the sign is still there.
Quote from: GaryV on March 12, 2020, 12:28:31 PM
There was a Day's Inn on the south side of Lansing MI off I-96 that got changed to an independent. (How bad do you have to be to lose a Day's Inn franchise?) They covered up (poorly) the Y with a D so then it was Dad's Inn.
I can't find it on Street View, so I don't know if it's still there or not.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/3325/4589578133_198c80b0c3_b.jpg)
Apparently, the hotel briefly became a Magnuson and primarily operated as a homeless shelter (https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2016/08/29/hotel-closure-could-leave-50-70-people-streets/89541056/) in its last days before a mountain of unpaid utilities and property taxes caught up with the owners and it ceased operations altogether. According to Street View, it has been converted to a U-Haul self storage facility (https://goo.gl/maps/nNGazYwtv7W4bv7PA). I've seen old industrial buildings and vacant big box stores converted into self storage facilities; this is the first time I've seen a hotel conversion. But on the surface, it would seem to make a lot of sense.
As to the overall topic of losing a Days Inn franchise, it happens, and I've brought it up on other hotel-related threads before. There seems to be a revolving door at the bottom end of the lodging food chain: A property will get dropped from Days Inn due to poor inspection and customer survey scores, then go independent for a year, and eventually the owners will scrape together enough money to do a slipshod, superficial renovation and get a Red Roof franchise. But in my experience, that affiliation doesn't last long, and the cycle repeats. If property values are low and the local economy weak, the hotel will keep spiraling down the drain (no-tell motel → low-rent apartments → homeless shelter) until the owners go bankrupt and the property sits abandoned (https://www.dailyitem.com/the_danville_news/news/township-discusses-dilapidated-hotel/article_256ceb92-af9d-11e7-b740-6bf9bbb40314.html)–or if the property is worth something, the hotel will be razed and the site redeveloped.
I wonder to what this revolving door is an intentional part of the business model for these bottom end chains: Collect a franchise fee knowing that the property will be delisted from the chain in a year; rinse, repeat...
There's a knock off Waffle House in Mississippi that uses a similar sign
There is a Facebook page called PunHub. I have been told by others that their logo mimics that of a popular website, but it's not a website I have any familiarity with. None at all.
Quote from: GaryV on March 12, 2020, 12:28:31 PM
There was a Day's Inn on the south side of Lansing MI off I-96 that got changed to an independent. (How bad do you have to be to lose a Day's Inn franchise?) They covered up (poorly) the Y with a D so then it was Dad's Inn.
I can't find it on Street View, so I don't know if it's still there or not.
It's not. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was across the street from the Meijer on S. Pennsylvania.
Quote from: SP Cook on March 12, 2020, 12:57:06 PM
Huntington WV had an Omelette Shoppe, which is the same one letter per square signage as Waffle House and Huddle House. Lost their franchise and just replaced one letter to become the truly sad abomination of the English language, Omelette Stoppe.
Went broke and is now a strip club, but the sign is still there.
I remember this. Buddy of mine barfed in the bathroom after a night of drinking when it was the Stoppe. 2003 or 4
Couldn't find a picture, nor remember where it was, but I remember seeing a sign for a former Ramada Inn (in the red tile letters) that must have lost its franchise. With a bit of clever modification of their perfectly good sign, they became the "Armada Inn".
^^ on I-20 and SR 70 in Fulton County, Georgia.
There was a Fort Worth-based liquor store chain, called Majestic, up till a few years ago, when they went bankrupt. A Dallas chain bought most (not all) of the locations out of the bankruptcy. One of the orphan castoffs, in south Fort Worth, must not have had the $$$ to go with a different sign/name, so in another flip-n-switch moment, they cheaped out and went with the name 'Jamestic' :-D :-D
Quote from: dlsterner on March 12, 2020, 11:02:14 PM
Couldn't find a picture, nor remember where it was, but I remember seeing a sign for a former Ramada Inn (in the read tile letters) that must have lost its franchise. With a bit of clever modification of their perfectly good sign, they became the "Armada Inn".
I see that a lot...modification of an existing sign
Quote from: 1 on March 12, 2020, 08:26:44 AM
Link to Street View (https://www.google.com/maps/@33.9526655,-84.1306181,3a,75y,256.16h,84.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sItfyenT-XaYOBcWWwIqymg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
I-85 near Atlanta. It's a "We Buy Gold" using the Waffle House logo. Are there any other businesses around the country (or elsewhere) that pretend to be a famous chain?
I'm somewhat amazed that the sign is still there, given that the gold shop itself closed in about 2014.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on March 13, 2020, 05:54:17 PM
Quote from: 1 on March 12, 2020, 08:26:44 AM
Link to Street View (https://www.google.com/maps/@33.9526655,-84.1306181,3a,75y,256.16h,84.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sItfyenT-XaYOBcWWwIqymg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
I-85 near Atlanta. It's a "We Buy Gold" using the Waffle House logo. Are there any other businesses around the country (or elsewhere) that pretend to be a famous chain?
I'm somewhat amazed that the sign is still there, given that the gold shop itself closed in about 2014.
Reminds me of a shopping mall near me. Fort Saginaw Mall has been closed since about 2004 and was demolished in 2009 but the sign is still there.
There's a chain of sucky-looking used car lots called Car-Mart that looks like they were trying to ape Walmart's older signage, back when they were still WAL★MART.
There used to be a used car place in Latham, NY called Goewey. They colored and fashioned their logo after Google. Logo changed after that, so I wonder if they got their wrist slapped.
They recently closed.