Milt's Stop n' Eat

[droomangroup]

I've been pondering this build for a while as Milt's is the oldest restaurant in Moab and a landmark everyone knows and loves. I got inspired to build it to help draw in people to my booth at a local xmas craft fair where i was selling my Brickrock Moab calendar which features custom Lego Jeeps out on the trails of Moab... http://imgur.com/a/vJTuE

For reference here's some pics of the real Milt's...

https://www.google.com/search?q=milts+stop+and+eat&tbm=isch

some of the signage has changed this year so some pics look different, plus someone just painted the cinderblock wall outside with these large cinder block sized color blocks to make an abstract mural, which is lucky for me since it's perfect for lego.

I'm usually not a fan of making decals for Lego builds, but for this one I made an exception since I was rushing to build this for the fair, and i have a limited selection of that light blue color so making some pure lego signs would have been difficult with the bricks on hand.

The only other "cheats" i used was on the yellow bike rack where i cut a yellow bar in half to make the center slats and you can see inside pics i used a few custom printed "Coke" 1x1 round bricks for soda cups.

The signage is close to the real thing, but i made some changes. the font face wasn't exactly right on the "Shakes, Fries, etc" and since my vinyl cutter can't cut super small things i changed the round coke signs on their building from saying "Coka-Cola" to just the bottle siloutte. Also the large sign on the top is actually a variation of their old sign, i tried cutting their current sign with the awesome mascot guy, but it was just too small for my cutter.

One of the nice moves i like here was the outside tables, the real tables are super small light tables and i wanted to get the same feeling while maintaining a studless look. this technic's wheel and a 3m axle worked perfectly.

here you can see the back wall by the bathrooms, the crazy wall on the left is actually what it looks like now (if you've been to milts before) they just repainted it a few weeks ago with this crazy abstract mosaic pattern...perfect for lego.

some nice moves i like here are the electric meter on the left wall and the gas meter on the back wall. the black thing is their smoker (which i just realized is turned the wrong way for the photo shoot...woops).

I kept the outside eating area pretty simple since i built this in a bit of a rush, the only comment i heard a lot at the craft fair was about how i didn't include the massive tree in that area. Honestly it would have taken me as long to build that tree as it did the entire building and i'm pretty sure i don't have the right bricks for it. I may still give it a go as i need to learn the art of tree building in LEGO. I was happy that at least one person understood the green plates were a hint at the tree's root area.

my favorite move out here is the little mural on the storage box outside the building. it's simple, but i like how it kept true to the real building.

here's a detail of the outside condiments and water cooler table, my other favorite move here is the newspaper machine, it's simple, but it looks good.

i should have prefaced this by saying i eat at Milt's a -lot-. it's walking distance from my house and it's the best burger (and tacos) in town so i'm there nearly every day. so i built almost the whole interior from memory :)

i'll start with the counter details here. i like the modified plates as menu/ketchup holders and the 1x1 white round bricks are the paper town rolls they have. the little plastic food plates were i think from some of my daughter's "Friends" sets or something, but they fit great as fast food diner plastic baskets. I only wish they included a stud to hold the food. in order to stay on one standard plate the building is a bit shorter in scale so i had to make do with a few less stools as the real thing, but it still works. you may notice the server is a bit taller than the other figs, that's because he has a 1x1 plate lift on his shoes b/c he's modeled after a guy who works there, Jim, who's a tall guy :)

the rear shake making area was a fun challenge, in order to keep the walkway the right size i had to make that small table/counter only 1 stud wide so i had to make the shake machine with some SNOT work so that i relied on the wall and could therefore be slimmer.

my favorite move here was using the handle end of a grey Lego syringe as the blender part on the shake machine. it's a perfect look.

here you can see the funky heater in the corner and even the stereo speaker on the wall. i used some light slate blue bricks on the inside, but the real color is actually like a light seafoam green. I have a few bricks that color, but like very few, and they are odd bricks too. i may go back and find some more to redo the interior colors.

here's the back room, which in real life is super small, but here maybe more so, so it's pretty simplified. you can see the storage shelf and radio in the foreground and in the back ground is a fig making some fresh cut french fries on a potato cutter.

the tiny bathroom with some maps and random pic tiles. in reality the walls are covered with moab area maps, so i tried to hint at that.

on more of the counter area, note the tip jar and coffee machine. i didn't have the little black fang for a coffee pot handle so used some cut Lego tubing.

here's a more overhead shot of the counter area. the stool color seats aren't accurate (since i had a limited number of 2x2 round tiles) and i also added a checked floor tile pattern mostly because the floor is just boring old white in real life and i was super low on 2x2 white tiles.

one of my favorite moves here is behind the cook. there's a small counter there in real life that holds the warmer for their excellent chili, since i didn't have a lot of room, i used two downward facing 1x1 headlight bricks attached to a side stud brick on the wall (that holds the printed menu tile on the outside)

one last shot of the outside, several locals at the fair joked about how the line was too short...which is a pretty fair criticism.

Edited December 7, 2015 by droomangroup

[LegoSjaak]

Cute and packed with nice details!!!!

[eurotrash]

So much attention to detail. Great job!

[Xon67]

What a great MOC! Great detail! Have you shown this to the folks at Milt's?

[droomangroup]

What a great MOC! Great detail! Have you shown this to the folks at Milt's?

oh yeah i've shown them and they love it. the owner has been out on vacation so he's yet to see it in person, but i think a few employees have already sent him pics.

[carebear]

Great Work!!

Love this!!

Greetings

[peedeejay]

Great build, especially the interior! There is so much to look at.

[droomangroup]

Great build, especially the interior! There is so much to look at.

thanks! yeah the real building is packed with little details so it was fun to pack it all in. It's funny because despite all that's going on, I think my favorite part was using the syringe for the shake blender :)

[KlodsBrik]

I seriously like your kitchen interior. So packed and so full of energy. Just as in real hard working "resturants" to keep on top of their game !

Great work here !

EDIT: Oh, your decals rocks as well !

Edited December 10, 2015 by KlodsBrik

[Andy D]

Great MOC! So much attention to detail, all the little things that make it believeable.

Andy D

[Electricsteam]

I've been in one of these ma and pop shops before.... But imagine it was about a 4th of that size. You've captured it perfectly man. The stickers throw the MOC over the edge!

[droomangroup]

I seriously like your kitchen interior. So packed and so full of energy. Just as in real hard working "resturants" to keep on top of their game !

Great work here !

EDIT: Oh, your decals rocks as well !

ha, thanks. i go back and forth on the decals. i like them but it feels a bit like cheating. i may go back and replace the parts that aren't text with lego versions, like the burger, shake, and fries and the coke signs.

Great MOC! So much attention to detail, all the little things that make it believeable.

Andy D

I've been in one of these ma and pop shops before.... But imagine it was about a 4th of that size. You've captured it perfectly man. The stickers throw the MOC over the edge!

thanks guys :)

It's pretty cool, I've even had Milt's daughter and one of his grandsons contact me about it. The grandson wanted to buy it, but it's a bit out of his price range :)