Doggie Diner

Doggie Diner head near San Francisco Zoo

The Doggie Diner Heads, as found in 2017

The most notable feature of the Doggie Diner chain was the sign: a 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) rotating fiberglass head of a wide-eyed, grinning dachshund, wearing a bow tie and chef's hat. These famous dog head signs were designed in 1965 or 1966 by Bay Area billboard and ad layout designer Harold Bachman.[5][2] Each dog head weighs 300 lbs.[2]

After the Doggie Diner went out of business, all the large dog head signs were taken down and many were sold to private parties. In 2001, one of the dog signs, restored and refurbished by the city of San Francisco, was installed on a median strip at Sloat Boulevard and 45th Avenue, near San Francisco's Ocean Beach and the San Francisco Zoo in the Outer Sunset neighborhood.[6] The Doggie Diner dog head became San Francisco landmark No. 254 on August 11, 2006.[7][8]

In September 2022, the non profit Illuminate.org installed three Doggie Diner heads as part of their Golden Mile Project on the car-free section of JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park.[9][10]

In December 2000, the Doggie Diner head was featured in Zippy comics as "the doggie" in grassroots effort to save the heads.[11][2] Zippy frequently participated in his long-running conversation with the giant fiberglass doggie mascot.

In 2004, Laughing Squid, a website founded in San Francisco, sponsored three of the dog heads – named Manny, Moe & Jack – as the "Holy Dogminican Order" to take the dog heads on a cross-country trip, ending in a show by Cyclecide at CBGB in New York City.[12] The cross-country trip was documented in a movie called "Head Trip", released in 2008.[13][14]

In 2013, Yarn artist Olek crocheted bright colored yarn over three of the dog heads as an art piece.[15]

"Doggie diner!" was the battle cry of the Batwinged Hamburger Snatcher (BWHS) character from Dan O'Neill's Odd Bodkins weekly newspaper comic strip.