Little Tavern Hamburger Shop (N Scale)


Skipjacks

Skipjacks

Member
Folks from the Baltimore - Washington area will know what a Little Tavern is. For those of you elsewhere, it's our version of White Castle. They served little hamburgers out of these tiny little stores.

For a little background, they look like this (sort of...every one was a little different)

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Last Sunday I got the idea that my n scale layout needed a Little Tavern. So I made one.

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If you're looking at it in person you can see a full counter inside with bar stools and a stove and everything you'd find in a hamburger shop. But I can't get a photo of that through the tiny windows. Looks cool if you see it in person though.

I still have a little touch up work to do. I need to put some kind of border on the windows so they look right. And I want to do something with the awning over the door so it doesn't look like a flat piece of plywood facing forward. Then I'll seal the inside seems so I don't get any light leakage when I put the LED inside of it and be done.
 
Oh and here's a fun tip on the shingles. I needed green as that's a signature color.

I stopped by MB Klein to get green singles and all they had in green was laser cut paper that needed to be glued. They had every color in the rainbow but all of it needed to have glue applied. I didn't want to use that stuff because I'd make a huge mess out of it. I wasn't impressed with the quality of the paper either.

I had previously used Minuteman Models Shingles on a peel and stick sheet of 3M paper. Higher quality paper and each row of shingles is self adhesive. They stick great and look awesome. But it's hard to get them in other than grey for N scale.

I had an extra sheet left from a previous project and tried coloring them with a green sharpie pen. Works GREAT! The paper soaks up the ink easily, and uniformly. It doesn't disintegrate the paper even with the tiny laser cut pattern. You just have to make your sharpie pen about 2 shades lighter than you actually want to see on the project because you are coloring on grey paper that darkens the shade a bit.

But color the shingles on the sheet before you apply them, and then just cut the individual shingle rows and apply them as normal.
 
Nice modeling work on the little tavern...I can almost smell the hamburgers cooking and the fried onions.

Greg
 
Greg@mnrr said:
Nice modeling work on the little tavern...I can almost smell the hamburgers cooking and the fried onions.

Greg
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It’s funny you mention that. I’ve been working on this project for about a week now and I’ve never been so hungry for a hamburger in my life. Every time I sit down to work on this I get hungry thinking about Little Tavern Death Balls.
 
Are "Little Tavern Death Balls" akin to the White Castle "Belly Bombers"?

I like what you have done. Neat little scratch build!
 
I put the final touches on the Little Tavern tonight

Added the awnings.

Finished up the shingles.

Added the interior lighting (can't take a picture of that to save my life)

Put a menu board and a Coke sign inside along with barstools (They are all more visible when the interior LED is on)

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Now the hardest part is to figure out where to place it on the layout!
 
Looks great, nice work on the corner brickwork!
Won't be long until folks are lining up at the door!
 
WJLI26 said:
Buy 'em by the bag full! :rolleyes: The burger that keeps on giving :rolleyes:. Great model. Nice work.
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Boris I bet you knew the Holabird Ave Little Tavern. It was the last one I knew of. :( Those onions could talk to you for a good bit sometimes, but they were good!
 
Bruette said:
I want one in O scale, what will it cost me Jack?
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A lot

The n scale one took me a week working on it every night.

I haven't built O scale stuff in years. I imagine it's harder to make things look accurate. N scale is harder to work with due to the size but it's also more forgiving. Small errors or things that don't look quite right are overlooked because they are so small they blend into the model. Blemishes on O scale stuff stands out.
 
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Skipjacks said:
... N scale is harder to work with due to the size but it's also more forgiving. Small errors or things that don't look quite right are overlooked because they are so small they blend into the model. Blemishes on O scale stuff stands out.
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Precisely why I can't work in either.

Thanks for sharing your work, I enjoyed it!
 
Bruette said:
Boris I bet you knew the Holabird Ave Little Tavern. It was the last one I knew of. :( Those onions could talk to you for a good bit sometimes, but they were good!
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Louis: Absolutely. Holabird Ave was the closest. Seems to me there was one on Belair Rd. or York Rd. also one in NE D.C. It's been a long time.
 
WJLI26 said:
Louis: Absolutely. Holabird Ave was the closest. Seems to me there was one on Belair Rd. or York Rd. also one in NE D.C. It's been a long time.
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The one on Holabird Ave wasn’t’ a ‘real’ little tavern with the tiny house design. It was actually kinda big and was built into a larger structure. It didn't have the little tavern look at all. There were a few shops like that. But I remember that one fondly. It wasn’t far from my former office so we used to go there all the time as recently as I think 2008 or 2009. No matter what it looked like the death balls tasted great!

There was also one on York Rd in Towson. I used to go to that one as a kid. That one was the standard little house design.

All of the Little Taverns had their own look. No two matched exactly. Some had awnings. Some didn’t. Some had a fancy 3D neon sign on the front, some had the flat sign like you see in my model. Some had the green piping on the corners of the building, some didn’t. Some had shingles. Some have metal roofs, some had other materials. Some looks like like mine but a mirror image…with the door on the other side. So each one was kinda unique. That made modeling this a bit easier as I could take some liberties and use each design element that I liked. I didn’t have to match a look EXACTLY

For my next building I’m going to make the Ghostbusters fire house in n scale. That’s going to be much tougher because there is only 1 of them and it’s famous. So I can’t take any liberties with the design for it to look nice. It’s a whole different challenge. And that is a whole different challenge than a completely unique structure like my passenger station and freight depot that I didn't copy off of anything. I designed those unique from the ground up so I was modeling something that only existed in my head. That gives you total freedom but adds the step of being an architect and designing a building first. Each kind of scratch building has it's own challenges. But that's what makes it fun!
 
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For my next building I’m going to make the Ghostbusters fire house in n scale. That’s going to be much tougher because there is only 1 of them and it’s famous. So I can’t take any liberties with the design for it to look nice. It’s a whole different challenge.
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Ladder 8's quarters 14 North Moore St, in Tribeca. Cool building. Fortunately, only two sides are visible, you can freelance the rest. The windows will be a challenge though. Good luck.
 
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