There was a bit of quirky restaurant news out of Seattle over the weekend. It seems divers have found an old Ivar’s Restaurant billboard at the bottom of Puget Sound. Seattle author Paul Dorpat, who is current writing a book about Ivar’s founder Ivar Haglund, discovered maps of Puget Sound during his research on the eccentric owner that indicated locations of the underwater billboards. Haglund, who passed in 1985, was convinced that folks would be traveling with the use of submarines and “installed” a few billboards around the Sound to advertise his seafood restaurant. Divers have been searching the sites for possible findings, and discovered their first find late last week.
The billboard will be investigated for authenticity. But Donegan believes the painted metal instead of today’s digitally produced billboards, the amount of barnacles and seaweed, rust on the unpainted side of the steel sheet and that a cup of chowder is advertised as only 75 cents are positive indications of a true find.
Well, that’s an interesting way to get the word out!
~Jennifer Heigl