For more than 50 years I’ve passed the old Milk Farm Restaurant sign near Dixon, Calif. The visits are less frequent these days, occurring on trips West when I visit family, but each time as I head along Interstate 80 south of Sacramento I see the venerable marker, all that remains of the once-famous eatery.
Those not conversant with area history have no way of knowing that the site was once one of the busiest stops between the state capital and San Francisco, where thousands were served weekly.
The 100-foot sign, topped with a cow jumping over a moon, once lit up with neon so vivid that it pierced the thick winter fog of the Sacramento Valley.
In my memory, I couldn’t recall the restaurant ever being open, and supposed that it had closed sometime in the 1960s. My parents said they had taken me there when I was around 18 months old, which would have been around the start of 1966. Yet, I would pass the site dozens of times in later years and could not remember the restaurant in operation, or even what it looked like.
So it was somewhat startling to find out that the Milk Farm, which began serving customers in 1919, remained in business until 1986.
Old Milk Farm Restaurant sign, Dixon, Calif.
Just down the road was another famous restaurant, the Nut Tree, in Vacaville, which operated from 1921 through 1996. I clearly recall that location and stopping there on more than one occasion. But the Milk Farm remains a void, except for driving past its iconic sign each time I headed north to such places as Davis, Sacramento or Lake Tahoe.
Fortunately, the world does not base historical judgment on what this author does or does not remember.
The Milk Farm began in 1919 as Hess Station, named for local rancher Karl Hess, who rented cabins to travelers in the days before motels.
The site was beside the old Lincoln Highway – Highway 40 – which was later expanded and renamed I-80.
Hess was apparently quite a promoter: he held milk-drinking contests, sold inexpensive chicken dinners and offered “all-you-can-drink” milk for 10 cents. He also helped make a named for the town of Dixon, where my grandfather and other family members attended high school, as the heart of the California dairy industry.
In 1938, Homer Henderson and his wife bought Hess Station and renamed it the Milk Farm. They added the cow logo which can be seen on the sign today.
“Stables, gas stations, an orange juice stand and a new restaurant all contributed to the Milk Farm being labeled ‘America’s Most Unique Highway Restaurant’ and to features on the radio and in such national publications as the Saturday Evening Post,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Celebrity visitors including crooner Bing Crosby, boxer Jack Dempsey and California Gov. and future US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.
The sign still visible today was erected in 1963 at a cost of $78,000, no mean sum more than 50 years ago.
The restaurant was eventually done in by rising food prices and increased competition, particularly from fast-food chains.
It closed in 1986 following damage from a violent windstorm and never reopened. In time, vagrants began inhabiting the structure, and in 2000 what remained of the building was razed.
Only the sign remains, a witness to the pre-chain-restaurant era, when part of the fun of vacationing involved the journey itself, and eateries put more emphasis on the quality of their food than on gimmicks used to lure travelers inside.
The Cotton Boll Conspiracy 
this sounds like it was such a cool place. i love these places that have their old eccentricities about them and never change, instead choosing to embrace them.
as you described they usually fall by the wayside, like the dinosaurs, but hold wonderful memories and stories of their colorful pasts. that’s great that the sign still exists.
There’s something to be said for the idosyncratic, isn’t there? A lot more entertaining than the same-old, same-old.
I too remember the days before the chains of – well, i can’t call them restaurants – infested the roads. Pre motorway, there were the transport caffs for lorry drivers (and there were always two of them to a lorry), the roadhouses from the inter war period who had long lost their upper class custom but still had a rather louche charm, the country cottages offering cream teas and the pubs – where children were hived off into a room apart as they could not be seated where drink was served.
So, as you can imagine, i enjoyed the tale of Milk Farm.
Thank you, Helen. I understand the attractiveness of chains, where you know what you’re going to get – which can be comforting to the traveler who doesn’t know what local places offer. But it seems chains have done irreparable harm to local restaurants. And there was something to be said for the individuality of country cottages and roadside restaurants.
I remember stopping at the Nut Tree. Whenever we went up north, it was the place we stopped at. It was a sad day when that closed and went into history.
The Nut Tree was quite the complex when I remember stopping there in the ’70s and ’80s. I believe a family squabble is what brought about its demise. A unique place, indeed.
It was. By the late 80’s it was in need of an update and that’s when the fighting started – one faction wanting to stay in the 50’s and the other looking forward. Now there is a shopping center there with the name, but none of the old memories. Sad.
I understand it’s nothing like the original, even if it has the same name.
not even close to the original. Just a standard cookie cutter shopping center.
It probably served as one of the models for the chain eateries which displaced it. But that sign certainly has lasted well, a good $78,000 worth.
Yes, 50 years old and it’s in good shape. Everyone who drives that stretch of the road knows it well.
I stopped at the Milk Farm only once, sometime in the late 70s. I ordered a veal cutlet. It was a gristly veal cutlet, and I never went back.
We used to stop at the Milk Farm on trips to visit our grandmother. We parked in the back, and entered through the Candy Kitchen. It always smelled so good, and we could occasionally talk our parents into getting some sweet treats. Then we would walk through the main restaurant and go to the “Milk Bar” with its black and white cowhide barstools to get milkshakes or ice cream cones. Only ate a meal there once or twice as I recall.
Very interesting; I think it was one of those establishments that are all but gone today.