Flint Original Coney Island Lunch (Demolished)
Flint, MI
Photo courtesy Richard Weiss

Flint Original Coney Island Lunch may be gone, but one of its most recognizable pieces lives on. The vintage blue sign standing outside Tom Z's Flint's Original has quite a history, originally hanging outside the original downtown Flint restaurant from 1919 until it closed in 1979. It found a new home here in 2008, allowing a piece of Flint's culinary history to survive. 06-09

The original Flint Original Coney Island Lunch was the city's first coney restaurant and helped establish what became known as the Flint-style coney dog. Unlike the Detroit version, Flint's famous coney is topped with a dry, finely ground meat sauce, a recipe that has become a local tradition. At its peak during the 1920s, the restaurant was reportedly serving thousands of coney dogs each day.

The original restaurant is long gone, but it's nice to see the historic sign still standing instead of ending up in a scrapyard. Sometimes saving the sign is enough to keep the memories alive.

UPDATE: The original downtown restaurant was demolished years ago, but its restored 1919 sign survives outside Tom Z's Flint's Original on Dort Highway. 06-26

Here's the original 1919 vintage neon sign at Flint Original Coney Island Lunch