Chard Furniture (Closed)
Pilesgrove, PA Photo courtesy Carl Schuetrumpf
You may want to pull over and have a seat when passing this place on Route 40. The Chard Furniture store near Woodstown featured a huge white rocking chair out front, the sort of roadside advertisement that made the purpose of the business pretty clear. It was large enough for visitors to climb into, although the chair was bolted down and did not actually rock.
The property originally operated as Skip’s Wayside Furniture before becoming Chard Furniture. The chair photographed here was not the only one to occupy the spot. According to local accounts, the first wooden chair was destroyed by an arson fire and its replacement was later stolen. Really, who steals a giant rocking chair?
A third chair was eventually built from metal and secured to a raised platform. A plaque at its base honors Skip Kirby, the Navy veteran who founded the original furniture business and died in 1989. The heavy replacement chair has managed to survive where its two wooden predecessors did not.
UPDATE: Chard Furniture has closed, and the building now houses The Find Marketplace, a multi-vendor antique and specialty shop. The replacement giant rocking chair remains out front along Route 40. 08-26
Red Bull
Woodstown, NJ Photo courtesy Carl Schuetrumpf
This Red Bull is at the Cowtown Rodeo near Woodstown, NJ. The bull appears
content as his friends Ashley and Justin join him for some mid-day sun.
Accompanying this giant cow is this
roadside man at the Cowtown.
Cruising along Route 40 near Woodstown, it is difficult to miss this bright red roadside animal. The Red Bull stands out on the grass with its white spots, upright ears and a paint job that could probably be spotted from the rodeo grandstand. Despite the old nickname, the fiberglass figure appears to be modeled after a dairy cow rather than a bull.
The big cow welcomes visitors to the Cowtown Rodeo and Farmers Market complex. Keeping watch nearby is another oversized Cowtown resident, a roughly 20-foot fiberglass cowboy dressed in a red shirt, blue jeans and a Stetson. Between the giant cow and the cowboy, motorists receive plenty of warning that they have reached Cowtown.
Red Bull
Woodstown, NJ Photo courtesy Carl Schuetrumpf
The rodeo traces its beginnings to 1929, when the Harris family started staging events on the property. Weekly professional rodeos have been held during the summer season since 1955, earning Cowtown a reputation as America’s oldest weekly running rodeo. The adjacent farmers market and flea market add even more roadside activity to this busy stretch of the Harding Highway.
UPDATE: Cowtown Rodeo and the Farmers Market remain open. The red cow and its companion cowboy continue to stand along Route 40. 08-26
The Captain's Table Shark (Gone)
Wildwood Crest, NJ Photo courtesy Carl Schuetrumpf
When was the last time you saw a shark while driving down the road? The Captain’s Table Shark hovered above the restaurant marquee in Wildwood Crest, jaws open and ready to surprise anyone cruising along Atlantic Avenue. It was a full-bodied roadside monster, the sort of oversized shore attraction that made you slow down even if seafood was not on the day’s schedule.
The shark belonged to The Captain’s Table, a large oceanfront restaurant opened in 1963 at Atlantic and Topeka avenues. The building was part of the show. Designed like an ocean-going ship, it had a pointed bow and several levels of dining rooms facing the beach. During the busy summer years, the place could serve more than a thousand dinners in a night, while the shark kept watch over the entrance.
Local stories say that when the shark first appeared, a few residents thought it might be real and worried about what would happen once it started baking in the Jersey Shore sun. It was only a fiberglass or plaster roadside creature, but from the right angle it apparently looked convincing enough to get people talking.
The Captain’s Table lasted for roughly four decades before becoming another casualty of the Wildwoods condominium boom. The restaurant was demolished around 2005, but the shark escaped the wrecking crew. It was purchased and moved to the bay side of the island, where it spent several more years mounted above the Royal Flush party-fishing boat lot on Rio Grande Avenue.
That second location gave the old shark one more chance to greet motorists entering the Wildwoods. Unfortunately, the salt air and coastal weather eventually caught up with it. A powerful storm knocked the figure from its perch, and the original Captain’s Table Shark was destroyed.
UPDATE: The Captain’s Table restaurant and its ship-shaped building are gone, with residential development now occupying the beach-block property. The relocated shark was later lost in a coastal storm. 08-26
Tom Sturgis Pretzels Factory Store
Reading, PA Photo courtesy Carl Schuetrumpf
Now here is a roadside combination that is hard to top. In front of Tom Sturgis Pretzels, a larger-than-life pretzel sits beside Route 222, complete with giant pieces of coarse salt. As if that were not enough pretzel advertising, a second one was growing right on the building.
That smaller pretzel was made from living ivy trained around a pretzel-shaped framework on the front wall. It takes a certain amount of roadside dedication to grow your own sign. The fiberglass pretzel out by the highway was only a little larger, giving passing motorists a choice between the salted variety and the leafy green model.
Pretzels have been part of the Sturgis family business since Julius Sturgis opened a commercial bakery in Lititz in 1861. His grandson Marriott “Tom” Sturgis started a separate pretzel company in Reading in 1946, and the operation moved to this Route 222 factory in 1970. Some specialty pretzels are still baked on traditional soapstone hearths.
Tom Sturgis Pretzels Factory Store
Reading, PA Photo courtesy Carl Schuetrumpf
The factory store remains a good place to pull over for a bag of pretzels and a closer look at the oversized roadside version. Just be sure not to take a bite out of the ivy one.
UPDATE: Tom Sturgis Pretzels remains open. The giant roadside pretzel was refurbished and repainted in August 2024. The present status of the living ivy pretzel is uncertain. 08-26
Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery
Lititz, PA Photo courtesy Bob Jagendorf
Another roadside pretzel catches the eye along East Main Street in Lititz. This one stands outside the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, where visitors can pose inside its oversized loops.
Julius Sturgis opened America’s first commercial pretzel bakery here in 1861. The fieldstone building dates back to 1784 and still contains the old stone hearth ovens. Tours include a lesson in twisting pretzel dough, just in case the big pretzel outside provides some inspiration.
UPDATE: Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery remains open, and the sidewalk pretzel continues to welcome visitors. 08-26
Chard Furniture (Closed)
Captain's Table Marquee (Gone)
Tom Sturgis Pretzels Factory Store
Tom Sturgis Pretzels Factory Store
Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery
