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Doggie Diner Designer Died
Harold Bachman, 84, the advertising artist who dreamed up the Doggie Diner heads, died Oct. 1st in Santa Rosa, Ca. In 1965, Bachman sketched the concept for the happy, rotating dachshund head to promote a restaurant, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The roadside icon, which once flourished in the Bay Area and was immortalized in Zippy the Pinhead comic strips, today can only be seen in one public place. In January 2005, a restored Doggie Diner head was added to the median strip of Sloat Boulevard near Ocean Beach in San Francisco.
[10/12/2005]- Address:
- Sloat Blvd., San Francisco, CA
- Directions:
- Median strip of Sloat Boulevard near Ocean Beach at 45th Avenue. The head faces east.
- San Francisco, California - Doggie Diner
The Doggie head is BACK! He had blown over in a wind storm, but he's back up on his pole in front of the Carousel, with a beautiful new coat of paint!
[kdoyle, 04/18/2004] - San Francisco, California - Doggie Diner Dog Head
The Doggie Diner opposite the San Francisco Zoo on Sloat Avenue has been a favorite eating and Dog Head viewing place for years. Recently this last remaining Dog Head has been under threat. The nursery next door bought the site and wanted to remove the Dog Head. Dog Head lovers from all over protested and the Dog Head was saved. Mother Nature then took action and toppled the Dog Head on its fiberglass nose during a windstorm.
The City of San Francisco went to work using other salvaged (saved) Dog Heads, owned by a fellow in Emeryville, as patterns. The Sloat Avenue Dog Head has been restored and placed back on his pedestal across from the zoo and next to the evil nursery.
[Tim Timberlake, 07/16/2001] - San Francisco, California - Last Doggie Diner Head Restored
The Last Doggie Dinner Head, which fell over in a storm and crushed its nose on April 2, 2001, was remounted Saturday July 1, 2001. The location for the head is across from the main San Francisco Zoo entrance on Sloat Blvd.
[Stephen Spenser, 07/15/2001] Last "Pole-Sitting" Doggie Diner Head Falls In Storm
A powerful April storm has felled what was San Francisco's last Doggie Diner head that remained "in the wild."
Seven feet tall, this smiling dachshund head wearing a chef's hat, out near the beach on Sloat Avenue, had outlived the restaurant chain it once advertised, and more recently a political battle between conservationists and progressivists. But a big gust of wind sent the fiberglass sign from its perch atop a rusted 20 foot pole, nose-first, onto the street. No one was hurt, though a phone booth was destroyed in front of the restaurant, currently called The Carousel.
"We've been watching it deteriorate," said Diana Scott, of the Ocean Beach Historical Society. "We were concerned that something like this could happen."
According to The San Francisco Examiner, Department of Public Works officials had just last week taken a look at the dog's pole and told Carousel Restaurant owner Silver Ballesteros that they planned to temporarily remove it this month and restore it with a new pole.
"We've been pushing them since last year . . . that dog head is important to myself and a lot of people. It's like an icon," said Ballesteros.
It is unclear what will become of the dog head. Crews planned to lift the 700-pound statue with a crane and carry it to a secured maintenance yard owned by the city. Preservations agreed that the dog would need a nose job but could be saved.
The dog's head was one of about 50 manufactured to serve as signs for the Doggie Diner chain of fast-food hot dog restaurants, based in the Bay Area and popular in the 1960s and '70s. The head on Sloat Boulevard was the last one remaining outside a restaurant that had once been a Doggie Diner. [2003: The head is reported repaired and back in place.]
[04/08/2001]
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