Tragedy Strikes the Pig Stand!

In my casual search for pig-related news today, I discovered that the Pig Stand in San Antonio, featured in an earlier post for its wonderful pig-shaped building, has closed. Well, it's actually more complicated than that. According to an informative posting on agilitynut.com (where the attached photo of the Beaumont Street branch sign was 'borrowed'), the pig that now graces the Pig Stand on Presa Street in San Antonio was discovered sitting in a junkyard in the 1990s. It apparently was used as a car-hop shelter at another drive in, but once restored, was added to an existing Pig Stand restuarant.

The Pig Stand branch in Dallas, which opened in 1921, is supposedly the first drive-in restaurant in the United States. The Pig Stand chain once included more than 120 restaurants, and claims to be the home of onion rings, Texas Toast, and chicken-fried steak. But over time the chain sold off most of its resturants and its current owners filed for bankruptcy last year. This week all of the remaining restaurants have closed due to a failure to pay back taxes. Apparently the restaurant was so in debt that the San Antonio branch tried to pay its workers with food! It is not clear when, or if, they will ever re-open. I hope that whatever happens, though, that folks will preserve these restaurants' fabulous architecture.