RAYNHAM — In the early part of the 20th century, as automobiles became more accessible to the average American, there was an explosion in popularity of buildings that looked like things.
Coffee pots, fruit, hot dogs; you name it, there was probably a building shaped like it.
Known as novelty architecture, Coney Island architecture, and Roadside Pop, these buildings served as both landmarks and advertisements for what you could find there.
Coffee-pot-shaped building? Why, you could stop there for coffee, of course!
Although not as popular of a design style as it was back then, there are examples of these buildings that are still standing, and one of them is a Raynham landmark: The Milk Bottle.
Other giant milk bottles
Built in 1925 and originally known as a Frates Dairy Milk Bottle, it was one of several made by the company.
Today, there is one still standing in New Bedford as well: it’s part of G&S Pizza at 2840 Acushnet Ave.
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The other is a more famous cousin from Taunton. Now serving as a concession stand outside the Boston Children’s Museum, the Hood Milk Bottle came from Taunton.
According to an April 2021 blog for the Old Colony History Museum by Dr. William F. Hanna, Taunton’s Milk Bottle had seen better days by the time it was rescued in 1976-77. Hood was willing to foot the bill for restoration, and donate the building as a bicentennial gift to the city of Boston. A home was found for it at the Children’s Museum’s new site on the Congress Street Wharf, and that’s where it’s been ever since, after being loaded on a barge and sailed to its new home in April 1977.
Other uses for the Raynham Milk Bottle
Raynham’s Milk Bottle has never left home and is as busy as ever. During breakfast on a recent Sunday, the line was out the door, with hungry and happy patrons waiting to be seated.
Though the building’s shape has never changed, the Milk Bottle has had many different lives over the years.
When it was first built, the 50-foot-high bottle was an ice cream stand.
In an August 1993 article in the Boston Sunday Globe by Robert Preer, Barbara Sleezer, an administrator at Town Hall in Raynham who was then 72 and had been a Milk Bottle regular since its opening, said: “It was during the Depression, and people didn’t have much money, but they flocked to the Milk Bottle. For a nickel you’d get an ice cream cone that was about all you could eat.”
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Then co-owner Steve Goldstein said in a 1978 Brockton Enterprise story by Marvin Gans that during its early heyday, the Milk Bottle was a major draw for Raynham:
“They used to come here from all over. Back in the ’30s and 40s, they had nine kids scooping ice cream. It was only a take-out stand, but there were so many people that they had to have a policeman out front directing traffic.”
‘Their own advertisement’
Frates maintained ownership of the Milk Bottle until around 1940, when it was taken over by a man named Squires. It’s had a series of owners since then, each of them making the place their own and reinventing the menu.
Although it faced some financial troubles in the late 1990s, the Milk Bottle has always remained a popular spot.
When big highways made it so that traffic passed around, rather than through, the Taunton area, business took a hit, but locals always kept the place going.
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Over the years, the Milk Bottle has hosted antique car nights and similar gatherings, and at one time the restaurant even had a car-hop service.
In the 1980s, a horseshoe-shaped counter replaced the old straight lunch counter, and it’s still there today.
Preer writes, “The 1930s and 1940s were the golden age of restaurants that were their own advertisement. Besides milk bottles, there were giant chickens, pigs, clams, doughnuts and sandwiches. Middleboro once had an oversized cranberry bottle restaurant.”
The giant chickens and sandwiches might be mostly a thing of the past, but Raynham’s Milk Bottle is still standing.
Plan a visit: The Milk Bottle is open six days a week from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. Their menu features breakfast classics, as well as blackboard specials, and a selection of muffins. For more information, call 508-822-6833.
Taunton Daily Gazette/Herald News copy editor and digital producer Kristina Fontes can be reached at kfontes@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News and Taunton Daily Gazette today.