Milk route: The milk bottle/can/bucket buildings of Southeastern Massachusetts

There's a 15-or-so-mile stretch in southeastern Massachusetts that could be called the epicenter of dairy-related mimetic architecture.  Salvador's, in South Dartmouth, is an ice cream parlor that's in the shape of a 30-foot milk can that dates back to 1936. It's been spectacularly renovated in recent years, complete with life-sized cow sculpture atop its roof. A mere two miles away in Dartmouth is the 20-foot Gulf Hill Dairy Ice Cream bucket. It's from 1929 and was lovingly restored and reopened in 2008 as Oxford Creamery At The Bucket after being shuttered for more than 20 years. It was moved from its original location to a lovely waterfront spot in Apponagansett Park, where they serve food, beverages and ice cream seasonally. Thirteen miles north in New Bedford sits G & S Pizza. They took over a beloved local landmark in 2006 that was originally Frate's Dairy, an ice cream parlor from the 1930s with a 52-foot milk bottle, and have been serving ice cream, pizza and other fine edibles ever since. The bottle is in superior condition, and was white and gleaming against the blue sky when we were there recently. We've also had the pleasure of visiting The Milk Bottle Restaurant, 24 miles away in Raynham, Mass., which was the sister milk building that Frate's built back in the '30s. And we hear there's another big milk bottle in Boston, but we'll have to save that for another trip.

So be on the lookout for these special places and join in the commerad-dairy. You wouldn't want them to slip pastyoureyes. I won't udder another word.

The cream of the crop: Raynham, Massachusetts' Milk Bottle Restaurant

This is the interior looking at the round bottle part. There's a drop ceiling and the upper part of the bottle is used for storage.

I love restaurants that have paper placemats that advertise the local businesses...

Gun-running, open-heart surgery...what ever it takes.

I like how Mike modestly slips in a "probably": "If I can't fix it, it probably can't be fixed"

"Hello? Anytime Plumbing? I've got a leaking faucet during the Renaissance."*
*loosely based on a Steven Wright joke.

Go out on a limb? That's gold, Jerry, solid gold!

We're big fans of novelty or programmatic architecture... you know, those kooky buildings made in the shapes of giant animals, food items or other things, and there's a dandy in the nice, southern Massachusetts town of Raynham: the Milk Bottle Restaurant, an eatery housed inside a 60-foot tall, 21-foot wide wooden milk bottle. Built in 1926, the Milk Bottle is a local favorite that has been run by the father-daughter team of Joe and Jamie Losciuto since 2001. Joe operated an electronics business in Boston for 30 years, sold it, and bought the Bottle as a Christmas gift for his family. Jamie had worked at the Bottle for years before the purchase and other family members have been involved over the years. They serve hard ice cream and diner fare. We had a delightful lunch there and it couldn't have been better...good portions, good prices, great service. This is the kind of place there just aren't enough of: a living, breathing, authentic roadside icon that makes you smile and want to come back again and again. It's the dairy thing we need these days and when it comes to milk bottle restaurants, everybody loves Raynham.

Lactose Intolerant: Rhode Island's Abandoned Milk Can Building

The thriving Rustic Drive-In is across the street.

And just down the road is Coffee & Cream, home of the giant travel mug.

The Milk Can's story is a well-intentioned but sad one. The building dates back to 1929 and is a prime example of that era's buildings-shaped-like-things roadside architecture. It went out of business in 1968 and sat vacant until the state wanted to use the land it was on for a highway exit ramp in the 1980s. Stanley Surtel Jr. and his father-in-law Frank D'Andrea bought the structure for $1,100 and had it moved from its original Lincoln, Rhode Island location to a new spot a mile down the road on Route 146 in North Smithfield. Almost immediately, the new owners encountered problems. It took preservationists and highway officials 17 months to devise a way to move the building without damaging it. Then regulations for installing a septic system added another delay. Surtel and D'Andrea put $50,000 into restoration when the state informed them the ground water on the new location was horribly contaminated with 600 times the allowable amount of benzine. Never reopened, the structure has been sitting on that same plot since 1991.

As much as I love beautifully restored or original old places, abandoned ones have a special eccentric quality all their own. Poignant, sad, ironic, spooky, or just plain weird... it's all good.

The Milk Can is on a particularly fertile stretch of Route 146. The spectacular Rustic Drive-In is across the street and is the rarest of rare roadside attractions: a thriving drive-in movie theater showing first-run fare like the new Harry Potter movie and selling out. And just down the road, a newer structure, the Coffee and Cream, is a recent establishment with the feel of an old time place but with a contemporary spin: a giant travel mug out front. But the Milk Can is the cream of the crop in this trifecta of retro Rhody road sites. It's an udder delight.