Big Amish man at Zinn's.

Big Amos, Barefoot Amish Giant

Strasburg, Pennsylvania

Before moving to his current home at Hershey Farm in Strasburg, Amos was the giant fiberglass mascot of Zinn's Diner. He is 15 feet tall (some reports put him at 18-ft.), and holds a pre-industrial rake. When his sound system was working, you could stand for minutes and listen to him spout bad Amish jokes in his Pennsylvania Dutch accent. Visitor John Sohl reported hearing this automated plea: "Yumpin' yiminy, by gosh, if you're hungering for great Amish food, we've got heaps inside..."

Amos is one of a very few fiberglass colossi in America that is barefooted. The nearest giant unshod brethren may be the dancing acolytes at the Palace of Gold.

Amos first appeared at Zinn's in 1969, replacing a proto-Amos that stood there since 1960. Zinn's owners closed up in August 2003 (it reopened under new management), and Amos ended up in the are of the Lancaster Heritage Center. He was too big to display at their facility in downtown Lancaster. So the Heritage Center loaned him to the Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn on Route 896 between town of Strasburg and Route 30. The loan period was scheduled to end in 2009...

Big Amos in Strasburg.

Amos looks good, though a bit out of place in our opinion, at Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn, grouped with a pair of Amish buggies.

The restaurant burned in January 2023, but Big Amos escaped unharmed.