A favourite drive-in diner from the ‘golden age of motoring’ is Flo’s V8 Cafe inside CarsLand on Route 66 in Anaheim, California. Technically, it’s inside the Disney California Adventure theme park, but Flo’s is a real restaurant. It’s the diner from Pixar’s 2006 movie ‘Cars‘ where anthropomorphic vehicles would fill up, brought to life.
Walking into Flo’s V8 Cafe is disorienting because it’s totally authentic. With the turquoise paint, pink neon, and checker-board floors, you’d swear you’ve been there before. Like many a 50’s style diners, there’s framed rock ‘n’ roll posters and gold records on the walls. In this place, the records are Flo’s, from her younger years as a singer with the Motorama Girls.
The entire restaurant is a physical facsimile of the diner from a movie, an animated movie. Details from the film are brought to life, like the chromed, table-top jukeboxes playing Motorama Girls’ hits like ‘Bumperlicious” and “Baby, You Charge My Battery“.
In a perfect example of life imitating art imitating life, Flo’s in the film is a mash-up of stereotypical mid-century diners. Except in the vehicular version the retro diner is a vintage gas station. Now, the imitation process is reversed, and the milk shake machines look like gas pumps, while booths look like the bench seats from a ’54 Ford.
Kids born just after the turn of the century probably grew up watching ‘Cars‘ until they wore out the DVD. And the parents of those same kids watched the movie at least a dozen times, too. Certainly for them, walking into a real-life Flo’s V8 Cafe is mind bending.
Looks like a fun place.
As a gearhead, and a guy who’s watched ‘Cars’ at least fifty-seven times, walking into Flo’s was like a dream. Such a fun place.
I can imagine. Tow Mater’s character is my late uncle transformed into a cartoon character. I couldn’t believe it when I saw “Cars.” Many moons ago.
I have a son who believes he is the re-incarnation of Lightning McQueen!
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Jokes aside, I totally loved that diner, and CarsLand in general. Couple years ago, my family went to California (my son was competing in a go-kart race). We took the opportunity to check out as many places as we could on old Route 66 and experience it first-hand.
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CarsLand was like a temple to Americana and it was great. Such a great family event.
This is soooo cool.
Life imitating art imitating life. A physical recreation of a cartoon diner based on old golden-age restaurants and gas stations on Route 66.
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I felt like a kid being there!