Businesses must have signage as part of their marketing. Suburban businesses are often set back so far from the road they must erect huge signs to gain the attention of drivers passing at speeds often in excess of 35mph. These signs are also meant to compete with all the other signs along the roadway as all those businesses are in the auto-dominated hell. So what happens when a suburban business owner buys a well-known restaurant in an urban area?

You get an owner that tears down a neighboring building for a parking lot – complete with bright white vinyl fencing. Never mind that the restaurant has operated for decades without the new parking lot.This week new signage went up on the front of the building – see below.

For at least the last 10 years that I have lived in the area Giuseppe’s has simply had their name on the elegant black awnings.

But now the signage, although not huge by suburban standards, overpowers the facade of the building.

Giuseppe’s new owner Forest Miller also owns Royal Orleans in South County. In February 2004 Mr. Miller testified at a hearing before the St. Louis Board of Adjustment regarding a building a few blocks east of his restaurant known as the Virginia Mansion. He was speaking in support of giving the applicant a zoning variance to permit a 7-unit apartment building on a site zoned for single or two family buildings and located between two single family houses. He had this to say about the area:“The area in which these folks are asking you to give them a variance for is not in my judgment, a historic district. It is not Lafayette Square, it is not a Lindell Avenue, is is not Holly Hills.” 

Those of us at the hearing were stunned to hear a local business owner speak of our neighborhood in such a manner. True, we are not Lafayette Square, Lindell or Holly Hills. But we certainly are not Mr. Miller’s very suburban Crestwood. Dutchtown is in the process of achieving designation as a local historic district. When someone doesn’t view an area as historic and lives in the ‘burbs what might they do to properties they own in the city? In the same hearing he had this to say about proposed plans for Giuseppe’s”

“When we were remodeling the front of our business, we had a grandiose plan that was totally different from the structure of the building. It had gables on it, it had direct lines, I was going to put arches in it and the building people in the city said, ‘We don’t want to do that to the storefronts, we want storefronts to look like storefronts, here’s what you can do, here’s what you can’t do.’ You know what, they were right.”

I don’t have access to any drawings to show you how they proposed to alter this great building but thankfully the city stepped in and said no. The best I can do is suggest you take a look at the other restaurant, Royal Orleans, to see what they have their. I was going to drive the nearly 6 miles from my house to get a picture but then I figured it wasn’t worth the time and gas. Besides, their web site has a great picture of Royal Orleans - click here to see. Pretty huh? You almost thought it was in the French Quarter didn’t you?

One sign isn’t that big a deal in the big scheme of things. But, over time it adds up. The suburbs are pretty much an aesthetic wasteland. We don’t need folks bringing that kind of ugliness to our city.

Steve