Pig Stand’s fame outlasts shop
Restaurant’s iconic sign is sold, movie scenes shot in the parking lot
The Pig Stand has closed its doors for good, but the decadesold diner still had plenty of action in its parking lot Monday, with classic cars on hand for a movie shoot and a classic sign collector taking home some of its neon.
Austin-based collector Clifton M. Jones hauled off the Pig Stand’s sprawling “Coffee Shop” sign, a roughly 12-foot, reflective red wonder that Jones estimates dates back to the late 1940s to early 1950s.
There’ll be an auction of the restaurant’s furnishings and decor on April 1, to benefit the former staff. But one of its most memorable fixtures is gone.
Jones wouldn’t say how much he paid for the sign, but he was thrilled and sort of sentimental.
“With these types of iconic signs, the developers buy these properties, they usually don’t see any value in this stuff, and they just get rid of it,” he said. Mike Ryan of Texas Neon & LED Sign Co. secured the sign with a truck-mounted crane for Jones to haul to a storage facility in Lockhart.
A camera crew earlier had captured around two dozen colorful vehicles from Alamo City Rods assembled outside the eatery for “Once Upon a Time in San Anto,” a Frank Sinatra-era period piece in the works by San Antonio filmmaker Jaime Ledezma.
Some cars dated back to 1925, but there were other types, such as a 1959 Ford Skyliner.
Ledezma had been in talks with Pig Stand owner Mary Ann Hill to shoot at the diner as far back as before the pandemic, but got into shooting other scenes and nearly missed his chance when he heard the restaurant was closing.
The Pig Stand closed Sunday after more than 100 years of service on Broadway. It was the last of a chain that first opened in Dallas in 1921, with the first San Antonio location opening later that year.
Graystreet Partners, a San Antonio developer, purchased the property in February, and Hill called it a career after more than 50 years.