Route 66 in the News

Historic Orange to Re-Open

2008-06-30 22:04:37

FONTANA, Calif. - Progress won't put the squeeze on a Route 66 orange stand if Joe Bono has anything to say about it.

The owner of Bono's Restaurant and Deli on Foothill Boulevard, where the orange orb occupies a spot in the parking lot, says the stand will open again.

"It's ready to go," he says.

All it needs is clearance from the California Department of Health Services. Offers come in all the time for its use, Bono said.

The stand was built in the 1930s on Foothill between Maple and Locust avenues, about three miles east of where it rests.

The owners sold 12-ounce glasses of orange juice for 10 cents, tourists from the East rode in at night when the air was cool and stopped for a sip and a sack of oranges, he says.

In the mid-1990s, the stand was vandalized and started to fall apart. It had been sold to a family in Newport Beach that was going to let it be demolished. The Historical Society was later given the orange.

The society moved it to Wal-Mart's property on Foothill, but the company wanted it removed in 1997. They approached Bono with a request, he says.

"Please, could you spare the orange?" they asked him.

Bono did. And the orange stands "ripe" next to his restaurant today.

~Josh Dulaney, SBSun.com