Bagdad Café, Newberry Springs CA

I decided to make a scale model of the Bagdad Café when it gets clear that our vacation in 2013 brings us to California. We drove the Route 66 in California but we missed some parts. And there are a lot of National and State Parks we want to visit, like Death Valley National Park, Yosemite National Park but also places like San Francisco and the best preserved ghost town in California, Bodie.

But something more about the Bagdad Café. This is not the original Bagdad Café, the actual one that existed in the 1960s when US Route 66 ran through town, was in the town of Bagdad. It included a café, a gasoline station, cabins for rent and an airstrip. When Interstate 40 opened and bypasses two-lane Route 66, commerce collapsed and the businesses that were once Bagdad, all closed and eventually the town was completely razed. It’s marked today by a clearing on the north side of old Route 66 and a single tree!

The scale model I made, was once known as the Sidewinder Café in Newberry Springs, California, 50 miles west of the original site of Bagdad on old U.S. 66. The Bagdad Café was made famous by the movie of the same name, that is shot in 1987. The film is a comedy set in a remote truck-stop café and motel in the Mojave Desert. It centers around two women who have recently separated from their husbands, and the blossoming friendship which ensues.

I like to thank Nick Gerlich and Paul Chassey for the pictures they made for me of the Bagdad Café, that was a great help!!!