AMC Cheese

Bonnie's Cafe is a classic breakfast and lunch diner. You can find it at the corner of University and Vandalia Avenues in Saint Paul, a hard-working part of the city that's home to a lot of truck-transfer warehouses.


Aside from the sprightly paint, the diner's interior appears to be untouched from half a century ago.

Except the signs. There are a lot of inkjet-printed signs to accompany the more traditional hand-lettered ones. This is my favorite because it contains what was, to me, a completely unintelligible abbreviation:


I thought about it for a while and realized it had to be a shortened form of "American."

But I still have no idea why they felt it was necessary to shorten the word (there's lots of room, after all) and even if they did, why they picked an abbreviation unknown to the reading public.

It's all part of the restaurant's character.