Follow the Bouncing Orange
N 34° 06.382 W 117° 28.180
11S E 456680 N 3774049
The last giant orange-shaped juice stand on the Mother Road...
Waymark Code: WM1R7M
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 06/29/2007
Views: 91
In the days before the Super-slab and car air conditioning, a refreshment break at one of the juicestands that dotted the major highways in California signified that you were entering the land of milk and honey and citrus groves in Southern California.
This particular juice stand was built in 1936 and has had a very mobile past. Its original location was somewhere along Foothill Blvd in Fontana. A black and white photo here (
visit link) is included on page 29 of Vivian Davies' book, "Guide to Historic Route 66 in California".
When I first visited it in October 1994, it had been moved to a Wal-Mart parking lot in Fortana (
visit link) . It was painted a nice titanium orange and was surrounded by a wrought iron fence apparently to become an information booth.
According to Vivian Davies, when Wal-Mart became impatient that it was not being used as the information booth and demanded that it be removed, Joe Bono paid $5,000 of his own money to have it moved to its current location next to his Route 66 delicatessen. It was repainted and label "Bono's Historic Orange".
In recent years, Bono's has only been sporadically open, but the Historic Orange still stands guard. Recently, according to the April 2007 issue of Roadsigns, the newsletter of the California Historic Route 66 Association, Bono's is currently being restored to its original 1940s style. Maybe that means that Bono's will re-open. Let's hope so.