After operating restaurants in Oklahoma and Arizona, Bill Johnson and wife Gene came to Arizona. They opened a unique western-themed restaurant on East Van Buren in Phoenix. They named the restaurant, Big Apple, after a dance in the musical Oklahoma! Gene ran the kitchen, while colorful Bill, a former cowboy/radio personality and stuntman/actor took care of the front-of-house. He built a radio studio from which KTAR radio carried Bill Johnson’s interviews with diners and celebrity guests. An outrageous restaurant needed an outrageous neon sign to invite in diners.

With its success, after Bill’s passing in 1966, the second-generation eventually opened seven similarly-themed Big Apple restaurants throughout the Valley, including Mesa in 1977 at 950 East Main Street. The restaurant featured a smaller duplicate of the original Van Buren sign.

Eventually the chain ran into financial troubles, declaring bankruptcy in 2011 – the year in which they began closing restaurants one-by-one. The Mesa Big Apple succumbed in 2014. Four years later the sign was donated to the Mesa Preservation Foundation.

Now restored, the sign is an homage to the legacy of Big Apple’s that Bill and Gene Johnson created.