WOW Hamburgers, Las Vegas, Triblend Tee

Venue History

WOW Hamburgers was a small roadside burger restaurant remembered not only for its delicious food, but for its enormous, wonderfully simple “WOW HAMBURGERS” sign on the 1200 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard. Operating during the late 1960s, the modest restaurant stood far from the glamorous casino dining rooms of the Strip, yet its oversized roadside advertising eventually gave it an unusual place in Las Vegas architectural and visual history. The building itself dated to the late 1950s and had originally been constructed as an automobile showroom. Early occupants included Desert Edsel Sales and later Todkill English Ford. By the mid-1960s, the property had been converted to restaurant use as Carroll’s, whose towering pole sign advertised “65¢ HAMBURGERS.” During the latter part of the decade, the price panel was altered so that the prominent “65¢” became the dramatically larger word “WOW,” creating the memorable WOW HAMBURGERS sign seen far and wide. Little detailed documentation survives regarding the restaurant’s ownership, complete menu, or exact operating dates. Its lasting fame instead comes from its appearance in photographs made during the influential 1968 Las Vegas research project led by architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. The team documented everyday commercial architecture along Las Vegas Boulevard while developing the ideas that became the landmark 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas. WOW’s huge sign and tiny building perfectly illustrated the roadside environment they were studying: architecture designed to communicate instantly to motorists traveling at speed. Eventually, WOW Hamburgers disappeared as the property changed uses. Although, during the 1970s, the same towering sign was adapted first for Sam Krug Chrysler-Plymouth and later for World Bazaar. In 1993, the Talk of the Town adult club moved into the property, and the old sign was transformed once again, this time famously reading “STRIPPERS.” Although WOW Hamburgers was a humble fast-food stop rather than a celebrated Las Vegas restaurant, its beloved burgers and audacious sign ensured its place in Las Vegas history. Today, it represents the wonderfully exaggerated roadside advertising that once made even an inexpensive hamburger stand impossible to overlook.