Nickerson Farms (Closed)
Picacho, AZ
Photo courtesy Dennis Slater

Nickerson Farms Restaurants were a common sight along the interstate in the Midwest at one time. I worked at the one in Emma, Missouri and then in Blackwell, Oklahoma back in the early 1970's.

On I-10 south of Phoenix at Exit 219, Picacho Peak there is an old sign and building that are pretty well preserved considering how old they are. The sign is in decent shape. Apparently, the old Skelly(?) gasoline signage was cut off the top of the sign. It is the only one sign and building that are left and identifiable as a Nickerson Farms Restaurant as far as I know. Many thanks to Dennis Slater for info.

Nickerson Farms
Picacho, AZ
Photo courtesy Dennis Slater

Traveling along Interstate 10 near Picacho Peak, the red-roofed Nickerson Farms must have looked like a welcome place to pull over. The tall sign stood above a Tudor-style restaurant, gift shop, and gas station, all surrounded by a whole lot of Arizona desert. It was the sort of highway stop where a family could fill the gas tank, sit down for lunch, and pick up a souvenir before getting back on the road.

The Picacho location opened on December 22, 1969, becoming the first Nickerson Farms restaurant in Arizona. The chain had been started by I.J. Nickerson, a former Stuckey’s franchisee who left that company after disagreements about how the roadside stores should operate. Nickerson took the basic highway-stop idea and created his own version.

Nickerson Restaurant sign and the Picacho Trading Post
Picacho, AZ
Photo by RoadsidePeek.com

Nickerson Farms buildings were easy to recognize. Most had steep Tudor-style rooflines covered in bright red shingles, giving them the look of an old English cottage dropped beside an American interstate. The Picacho restaurant combined a family dining room with a gift shop and filling station, making it a complete stop for travelers crossing the desert between Phoenix and Tucson.

One of the chain’s stranger attractions involved honey. Nickerson Farms locations sold honey collected from bee colonies kept on the property. At Picacho, customers could peer through a glass observation window and watch live bees working inside their hive. Nothing gets children excited about a long car ride quite like thousands of bees living on the other side of a restaurant window.

Close up of sign from 1998
Picacho, AZ
Photo by RoadsidePeek.com

The formula worked well enough for Nickerson Farms to grow to roughly 60 or 65 locations during the 1970s. Most were positioned along busy interstate highways across the Midwest and Southwest. For a time, the red roofs and tall signs were familiar sights to cross-country travelers, much like Stuckey’s and Howard Johnson’s.

The Picacho sign originally carried the name of the fuel company at the top. When the gasoline partnership ended, that portion was simply cut away, leaving the top of the framework with a noticeably chopped-off appearance. The rest of the tall Nickerson Farms sign continued standing beside the highway long after the restaurant stopped serving anyone.

Just next door was another wonderfully odd roadside stop, the Picacho Peak Trading Post. Better known locally as the “Arizona Nuthouse,” it came with its own giant welcoming figure and plenty of desert-highway character. With the trading post, Nickerson Farms, bright roofs, tall signs, gas pumps, and gift shops all gathered around the same exit, this must have been quite a stop during the 1970s.

Nickerson Restaurant deteriorated
Picacho, AZ
Photo by RoadsidePeek.com

The Nickerson Farms restaurant closed around 1980 and then sat empty for more than three decades. Its red roof faded under the Arizona sun while the windows broke, walls deteriorated, and desert brush crept around the property. The neighboring Arizona Nuthouse burned in 2002, leaving the abandoned Nickerson Farms building to keep watch over the interchange by itself.

By November 2013, much of the rear portion of the restaurant had collapsed. The remaining shell became a serious safety problem, and the old Tudor-style building was finally demolished and cleared away in 2016.

A look at the sign from 2018
Picacho, AZ
Photo by RoadsidePeek.com

UPDATE: The Nickerson Farms used to be an American franchise which operated between the 1960s through the early part of the 1980s. The franchise at its peak had 60 restaurants dotting the interstate and was owned by a former Stuckeys franchisee who wasn't thrilled with the rules and regulations and decided to go about it on his own. The Nickerson Farms has deteriorated greatly over the years. 09-21

UPDATE: The Nickerson Farms restaurant and neighboring trading post are both gone, leaving little more than open desert around the former travel stop. The tall, weathered Nickerson Farms sign still survives near the base of Picacho Peak, standing by itself as a reminder of the days when the red-roofed restaurant, gift shop, gas station, and live beehive welcomed Interstate 10 travelers. 08-26