T & T Gas N Mart – Albuquerque, New Mexico
“Eat here and get gas.” Even in more naive and innocent times, the connotation of that double-entendre wasn’t lost on adults or children, all of whom giggled when they espied the classic sign on the marquee of many a combination eatery and filling station. In his brilliant website The Big Apple, the “restless genius of American etymology” Barry Popik points out the sign was noticed as early as 1930. On roadways and byways–primarily across rural America–you might still espy that clever, funny and yes, inviting sign. It undoubtedly still inspires guffaws and groans in equal measure. Consumer historian Jan Whitaker explains in her magnificent blog Restaurant-ing Through History that not long “after thousands of Americans acquired cars and took to…