Tag: mother road

Roadkill Cafe, Seligman AZ

The Roadkill Cafe, along Route 66 in Seligman, Arizona

You kill it, we grill it!

The Roadkill Cafe along old Route 66 in Seligman has a wonderful souvenir shop inside selling gifts such as t-shirts, sweaters and aprons with slogans such as “you kill it, we grill it!” and featuring menu items such as Flat Cat – served as a single or in a stack, Rigor Mortis Tortoise and Fender Tenders. Of course, in reality it is a normal family owned, reasonably priced restaurant along a decent length of usable Route 66. The first time we drove past the Roadkill Cafe, we were trying to get to the Grand Canyon before sunset so we only stopped for some photos, however it was on a must-visit list for the next occasion, and we’ve eaten there several times since.

Seligman, an old railroad town was founded in 1886 and is known for being the birthplace of Historic Route 66, mainly due to the efforts of the Seligman Chamber of Commerce and local business owners to get the section of road between Seligman and Kingman designated as Historic Route 66 back in 1987, not long after the last section of the Mother Road, in nearby Williams, Arizona was bypassed by interstate 40. This was well before other towns and cities along the entirety of Route 66 started making similar efforts. Perhaps this is one reason that Seligman still looks so authentic and feels like you’ve suddenly been transported back to the heyday of the Main Street of America.

Seligman, Arizona – feels like you’re in the wild west

Seligman is a small, unincorporated town with a wonderful wild west heritage. The Roadkill Cafe itself was once the OK Saloon, and the bar/gift shop area is the original building. The restaurant section is an extension that was once a patio to the bar, but eventually enclosed to make a larger building. 

The jailhouse which dates from 1860 claims to have held criminals such as “Seligman Sam” and “three-finger Jack”. Apparently in 1866, four Indians escaped from the jail by tunnelling underground to the OK Saloon next door and made their getaway only to be shot dead four days later in a shoot out with law enforcers.

Radiator Springs, from the Disney Pixar film “Cars” was known to be loosely based on Seligman, and indeed as you take your road trip along Route 66, also known as the Will Rogers Highway you’ll see various locations and people who inspired parts of this fun, animated movie. 

Our Route 66 Challenge

We love the USA and the culture and Americana that comes with travelling throughout the different states. One of the best known road trips is arguably Route 66 which stretched almost 2500 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. Route 66, also known as the Will Rogers Highway, the Mother Road or simply the Main Street of America still has large sections which still exist in varying conditions whilst others have been paved over and are now part of the US interstate system.

American road trips are in our DNA at RouteTrip USA and has been part of Director Stephen and his wife Chantal’s life for many years. A couple of years ago they decided that they would buy a classic car and drive the entire length of the Mother Road in it before shipping the vehicle back to the UK.

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Having made the decision, they waited for the right car to come along. Stephen has owned several American cars for many years and often drives his yellow New York Checker taxicab at the weekends or the original Texan Ford F100 shop truck to the office. He found out through a FaceBook group, the “Internet Checker Taxicab Archive (ICTA)” that several Checkers, both ex-cabs and civilian models were at a Massachusetts junkyard awaiting the crusher.

It turned out that a Checker collector had sent his entire collection of some 40 cars to the this junkyard including some rare ones such as genuine ex-cabs, station wagons, factory limos (known as Aerobuses) and other rare models.

Several people stepped in and saved cars from crushing and those which were sadly beyond saving were stripped of any usable parts. Stephen purchased one of the rare civilian station wagons, a 1968 model seen below in the junkyard. He also obtained a complete disc brake system from one of the unsaveable vehicles to upgrade the brake system from the original drum setup.

Whilst the original plan was to drive the Mother Road in a Cadillac or perhaps a Buick, it turns out that fate had other ideas. Funnily enough Stephen has often spoken about his desire to buy a Checker Wagon. Decision made, the journey would be undertaken in the 50 year old station wagon below.

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The plan was to ship this car from Massachusetts to Arizona where friend and ICTA Facebook member will mechanically restore the car back to a standard where it should be able to complete the challenging Route 66 road trip.

We got word last night that our station wagon has been collected from the junk yard and is on it’s way to Arizona, also some 2500 miles. We will steer away from any technical details on the restoration, however we will keep tabs on the progress right here on this blog.