The owner and advocates for the long-closed Road Runner’s Retreat restaurant near Chambless, California, have launched an online fundraiser to repaint its neon sign.
Those who donate $35 or more to the effort through GoFundMe.com will receive a T-shirt and a reproduction bumper sticker from the 1960s when the restaurant still was in operation along Route 66.
The sign’s neon tubing was taken down for restoration a few months ago. Repainting the sign and redoing the electrical lines are next on the to-do list.
The Road Runner in August 2021 received a $5,386 cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program to help cover costs related to the sign’s restoration.
The owner considered restoring the neon sign after a test in late 2019 revealed much of its wiring and tubing still worked.
Owner Ryan Anderson has organized volunteer cleanups at the site during the late fall, when the desert heat is not as oppressive. Anderson is the grandson of the restaurant’s last owner.
Roy and Helen Tull built Road Runner’s Retreat along Route 66 in the early 1960s. The business closed in the mid-1970s after Interstate 40 bypassed the area, choking off traffic.
Bill Ross Murphy purchased the property after it had been closed, with the intent of never reopening but maintaining it as much as possible due to its Route 66 significance.
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