Roy's Motel and Café is a
motel
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionarie ...
,
café
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non ...
,
gas station and auto repair shop, defunct for many years but now being largely restored, on the
National Trails Highway of
U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...
in the
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...
town of
Amboy in
San Bernardino County, California
San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181, ...
. The historic site is an example of
roadside Mid-Century Modern Googie architecture
Googie architecture ( ) is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture, jets, the Atomic Age and the Space Age. It originated in Southern California from the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s, and was popular in th ...
. The entire town of Amboy – including the mostly defunct Roy's complex – is owned by and under the stewardship of a private preservationist.
History
As a Route 66 stop
In 1938, founder Roy Crowl opened Roy's as a
gas and service station along
U.S. Highway 66
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...
, in Amboy. At the time, Route 66 – the "Main Street of America" – was the primary east-west highway artery crossing the nation from
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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through the
Southwest
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
. The construction of Roy's was one consequence of a Route 66 realignment through Mountain Springs Summit, bypassing
Goffs to directly connect
Needles and
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
, and continuing west to Amboy.
In the 1940s, Crowl teamed up with his son-in-law, Herman "Buster" Burris. They expanded the business to include a café, an auto repair garage, and an
auto court of small cabins for overnight rental by Route 66 travelers. Buster Burris himself almost singlehandedly created the town's
infrastructure, some of which remains semi-functioning today. Burris even brought power to Amboy and Roy's all the way from
Barstow by erecting his own poles and wires alongside Route 66 using an old
Studebaker pickup truck.
Postwar business boomed as families discovered the joys of motor travel after the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
years of
tire
A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which t ...
and
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...
rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...
and new cars not being manufactured. During that time, Roy Crowl and Burris kept Roy's Garage and Café operating 24hrs – seven days a week; so busy was Roy's that Burris took out classified ads in newspapers across the country in the hope of recruiting help.
[Mike Anton]
Breathing life into a faded desert landmark
''Los Angeles Times'', January 17, 2007.
By the beginning of the 1950s, Roy's complex employed up to 70 people; the town's entire population then was 700.
Some very significant aesthetic changes came to Roy's Motel and Café in 1959: the February 1 erection of the towering
neon boomerang
A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning ...
sign visible for miles approaching Amboy; and the construction of the motel's new
Mid-Century modern "inclined roof flying over a glassed wedge" guest reception and office theme building. These became a vital
milepost beacon and
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
refuge for more than a decade.
After Interstate 40
The 1972 opening of
Interstate 40 in California
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Barstow, California, to Wilmington, North Carolina. The segment of I-40 in California is sometimes called the Needles Freeway. It goes eas ...
, unconnected as well as a fair distance north of Amboy's section of Route 66, quite literally meant the overnight loss of business. Burris himself was quoted as saying that his business "went down to zero" the day I-40 opened. Roy Crowl died in 1977, with Buster Burris continuing the business for what comparatively few travelers now used decommissioned but scenic Route 66. Burris was known to have strong prejudices against "rowdy bikers and men with long hair" and chased off many "unacceptable patrons" at gunpoint.
During Amboy's decline, Roy's Motel and Café became the town's only business besides a post office and Bristol Dry Lake's
chloride
The chloride ion is the anion (negatively charged ion) Cl−. It is formed when the element chlorine (a halogen) gains an electron or when a compound such as hydrogen chloride is dissolved in water or other polar solvents. Chloride sa ...
works, and continued to attract visitors including some well-known people, long after the town's overall decline.
Timothy White period
![Roys](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Roys.JPG)
In 1995
Timothy White leased the entire town of Amboy and Roy's from Buster Burris. White was a noted New York
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographers
As in other ...
, who saw value in maintaining the property in a weathered, worn condition as a
filming location. White contracted with his 'high school buddy' Walt Wilson to manage the property, and later completed the purchase of the whole town in February, 2000 for U.S.$710,000 from Burris. Buster Burris died later that year at age 91 on August 10, 2000.
Wilson and White continued to sell gasoline, food, and Route 66
souvenir
A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...
s at Roy's. However the operating hours were sporadic, the menu limited, the management reportedly surly to visitors, and the gasoline and water almost prohibitively expensive – due to the facility's remote location and exorbitant pricing. Reportedly a single glass of tap water in the café cost US$1.00. Timothy White offered Amboy for sale on
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
in 2003, but the property remained unsold.
Restoration
The property went into foreclosure for
repossession in February 2005, with Timothy White and Walt Wilson relinquishing control and returning ownership of Amboy and Roy's to Bessie Burris, Buster Burris's widow. She offered all the property for sale "on the San Bernardino County courthouse steps" but no bidders showed up. With her granddaughter Bonnie Barnes helping, Bessie Burris declared the town on the market for just one March 2005 week with sale to the highest bidder that Friday at noon.
The town was finally sold in May 2005, to
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
preservation patron
Albert Okura, after his pledge to Bessie Burris to restore Roy's keeping its original historic Route 66 look and feel, reopen it, and to open a new museum showcasing Amboy's history. Okura acquired the 950+/- acres including the town and Roy's Motel and Café for $425,000 in cash on May 3, 2005.
Albert Okura, owner of the
Juan Pollo chain restaurants, faced challenges in getting basics such as electricity and water services restored and operative. Okura's restoration hurdles predominantly involved Amboy's infrastructure, most of which had been laid by Buster Burris himself and not to current building codes. Bessie Burris continued to visit and work with Albert Okura collecting
memorabilia
A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...
for the town and Roy's until her death at 91, May 17, 2008 in nearby Wonder Valley, California.
Okura has experience with
preservationist Preservationist is generally understood to mean ''historic preservationist'': one who advocates to preserve architecturally or historically significant buildings, structures, objects, or sites from demolition or degradation. Historic preservation us ...
efforts and stewardship, being the owner of the
Original McDonald's in
San Bernardino, California
San Bernardino (; Spanish for "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 ce ...
which he operates as a
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...
. Unlike Wilson and White who wanted to maintain Roy's and Amboy in a "weathered" condition for use as in film shoots, Okura plans to fully restore Roy's to its former glory as a "nostalgia tourist" destination, and Route 66 rest stop for travelers en route to and from
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...
scenic and recreation areas.
Reopening
The first steps, the
coffee shop and
gas station, have both been refurbished and were reopened on April 28, 2008. The Roy's Motel and Café repair, renovation, and restoration costs so far approached U.S.$100,000. While the station's
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...
is still expensive, owing to remote delivery costs, it is below the exorbitant Wilson and White years. Albert Okura also has plans to open a Roy's Café and mini-mart at the same location, although the lack of adequate
potable water supplies has kept the café's kitchen closed.
A 2013
Kickstarter campaign proposed to restore the Roy's
neon sign
In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in D ...
as part of a larger project by which a newly established Amboy Foundation of Art proposes to eventually rehabilitate the long-abandoned motel as a place in the desert where artists would be able to achieve solitude and inspiration.
The motel is now closed, though it has been used as a staging ground for art exhibits.
In popular culture
Actors
Harrison Ford and
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolad ...
, with autographed photos on the restaurant's wall, visited when schedules allowed. Ford frequently flew in, landing his plane on the adjacent
Amboy Airfield, one of the first in California.
Part of the 1986
motion picture ''
The Hitcher'' with
Rutger Hauer
Rutger Oelsen Hauer (; 23 January 1944 – 19 July 2019) was a Dutch actor. In 1999, he was named by the Dutch public as the Best Dutch Actor of the Century.
Hauer's career began in 1969 with the title role in the Dutch television series ' ...
was filmed in The Roy's Gas Bar. Both the reception area and neon sign helped establish the setting for a 1999 television commercial for
Qwest Communications
Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western and midwestern U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dako ...
. It was also used in the
Enrique Iglesias music video for his hit single, ''
Hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ''actor''), ''her ...
.'' In September 1993, ''
Kalifornia
''Kalifornia'' is a 1993 American road thriller film directed by Dominic Sena, in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, and Michelle Forbes. The film tells the story of a journalist (Duchovny) a ...
'' was released, starring
Brad Pitt, which was filmed in Amboy.
In 1978, Buster Burris married Bessie Van deVeer, a local
artist, who brought her love of the
desert and her charm to Amboy. Roses were painted on side of the prep table in the kitchen and can be seen in the movie ''The Hitcher''. They continued to run the town together until 1995.
The music video for Rock band
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age (commonly abbreviated QOTSA) is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 1996 in Palm Desert, California. The band was founded by vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme, who has been the only constant member throughout mul ...
's 2000 hit, "
The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret," features Roy's prominently. The band themselves are natives of the California desert.
Roy's was described fondly as a place which
Neil Peart
Neil Ellwood Peart OC (; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian-American musician, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an ...
,
Rush's drummer, would stay on his motorcycle journey in his book ''Ghost Rider.''
In 2008 it was used as the background of
Sky
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy, ...
idents of "Twister".
''
Beneath the Dark'', a 2010 American mystery-thriller film directed by Chad Feehan and starring Josh Stewart, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and Chris Browning, was filmed primarily at Roy's.
The 2010 racing video game ''
Blur'' featured Roy's as part of a level set in Amboy.
In 2013,
Armin Van Buuren filmed portions of his music video for his song, "
This Is What It Feels Like
"This Is What It Feels Like" is a song by Dutch DJ and record producer Armin van Buuren, featuring Canadian singer, songwriter and former soulDecision frontman Trevor Guthrie, released in the Netherlands by Armada Music on 1 January 2013 as th ...
" in Amboy.
Also in 2013, producer Thomas Wise filmed a national TV commercial for Lucas Oil Products & Lucas Oil Stabilizer at Roy's Motel and Cafe, along with various other unique southern California locations.
Part of the 2015 motion picture
''Southbound'' was filmed at Roy's Motel and Café. It is featured prominently in the first story, “The Way Out.” The location returns briefly in the final story, “The Way In.”
A painting of the famous Roy's sign by Bob Dylan is currently being exhibited as part of 180 pieces of his in Miami.
The café was a featured stop during Japanese rickshaw driver Yuji Suzuki's 2019 attempt at running the length of Route 66.
A 2022 Nissan commercial, seen during the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
men's and
women's basketball tournaments, featuring various collegiate mascots, was filmed at and near the motel.
In 2022 Olivia Rodrigo performed the song
Traitor
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
from her debut album
Sour
The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...
in this location for the documentary
Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u.
See also
*
Amboy Crater
Amboy Crater is a dormant cinder cone volcano that rises above a lava field in the eastern Mojave Desert of southern California, within Mojave Trails National Monument.
It is about equidistant from Barstow to the west and Needles to the e ...
*
California Route 66 Museum
The California Route 66 Museum is located on Historic U.S. Route 66 in Old Town Victorville, in the Mojave Desert within San Bernardino County, California
San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located ...
–
Victorville, California
Victorville is a city in Victor Valley in San Bernardino County, California. Its population as of the 2020 census was 134,810.
History
In 1858, Aaron G. Lane came to what is now known as Victorville and founded a waystation called "Lane's Cr ...
*
List of motels
This is a list of motels. A motel is lodging designed for driving, motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles. Entering dictionary, dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined in 1925 as a portmanteau of ''motor'' and ...
References
External links
Roy's: history, photos and various external links website Qwest Communications commercial filmed at Roy'sCalifornia Historic Route 66 Association websiteLucas Oil spot filmed at Roy’s by Thomas Wise, 2013*https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1422800/ Beneath The Dark 2010]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy's Motel And Cafe
Buildings and structures on U.S. Route 66
History of the Mojave Desert region
Tourist attractions along U.S. Route 66
Restaurants in California
History of California
Hotels established in 1938
Hotels in California
Buildings and structures in San Bernardino County, California
Modernist architecture in California
Tourist attractions in San Bernardino County, California
Retail buildings in California
Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in California
Gas stations on the National Register of Historic Places in California
Motels in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in San Bernardino County, California
Restaurants on the National Register of Historic Places
Transportation buildings and structures in San Bernardino County, California
1938 establishments in California