7 Popular Restaurant Logos That Have Hidden Meanings
Restaurant logos are more than just pretty pictures designed to grab your attention while you drive down the street. Designers spend many hours creating symbols that tell a story about the brand or its history. Many of the most famous food chains have clever secrets hidden right in plain sight.
Here are the hidden meanings behind some of your favorite restaurant logos.
Arby's
The Arby's logo looks like a large cowboy hat, which fits their Western theme and rugged branding. However, the name itself is also a play on the initials R.B. People often think it stands for roast beef, but it's actually a tribute to the Raffel Brothers, who founded the company.
The hat symbol reinforces the idea of big portions and a bold, traditional American spirit that the founders wanted to share.
McDonald's
The Golden Arches are perhaps the most recognized restaurant symbol in the world today. Originally, these arches were part of the actual physical design of the first franchised restaurants to help them stand out to passing drivers.
When designer Jim Schindler created the logo in 1961, he kept the arches because they resemble the letter M.
Pizza Hut
The red shape sitting on top of the Pizza Hut name is often mistaken for a simple hat. In reality, that iconic red symbol represents a roof. This reflects the specific architectural style of the original restaurant buildings which had distinctively sloped red roofs.
It was designed to make the buildings easy to recognize from a distance. The logo preserves that history even as the restaurant designs have changed over the many decades.
Baskin-Robbins
This famous ice cream shop is well known for offering a huge variety of flavors to its customers. The logo highlights this by using pink and blue colors to form the initials of the brand name.
The pink parts of the B and the R actually form the number 31. This represents their famous promise that you can have a different flavor for every single day of the month without ever repeating a choice.
Little Caesars
The character in the Little Caesars logo is holding a spear with a pizza on it. If you look at the orange toga he is wearing, you can see that the pattern on the hem actually spells out the letters L and C.
This is a very clever way to hide the company initials within the clothing of the mascot. It adds a layer of fun for eagle-eyed fans who enjoy finding small artistic details.
Dairy Queen
The Dairy Queen logo is a simple red shape that resembles a pair of lips. This design is meant to represent the mouth and the enjoyment of eating delicious frozen treats.
The blue and orange strokes above and below the name also represent cold and hot, serving as a reminder to customers that they serve both chilly soft serve ice cream and hot food items like burgers.
Wendy's
The logo for Wendy's features a friendly portrait of a young girl with red pigtails. If you look closely at her ruffled collar, you can see the word MOM spelled out in the fabric lines.
Though the company claims this detail is unintentional, it does evoke a sense of home cooking and family values that align with the brand.
It's fascinating how much thought goes into the design of a sign or a burger wrapper. Sometimes a simple logo can tell you everything you need to know about a restaurant.
Next time you are out for a meal, you can share these fun facts with your friends or family!