“You see the big sign on the building where it says ‘Peanuts?” asks The Peanut Shoppe co-owner and long-time manager Rida AbuZaineh. “Who wants to buy a peanut sign?”
AbuZaineh is selling the gigantic arrow-shaped sign that vertically spells “Peanuts,” which graces the front of his legendary Downtown store. “That goes towards generating some money.”
The Peanut Shoppe at 24 South Main Street will close December 31st, AbuZaineh says. The building was sold and he’ll be forced to move.
The sign, which points downward, is “two-story height. The sign by itself. It’s a three-story building.”
Recounting the sign’s history, AbuZaineh recalls, “We got it up in the early ‘90s. Either ’94 or ’95. But we got it from a factory and there were two signs. We got them and we had them restored and put them together in order to make it work. If I’m not mistaken, I think the name was Memphis Sign Co.”
The sign, he says, is made of “thin metal, a little bit of plastic trimming and those colorful lights. Blue lettering. White background behind it. The major frame is yellow with yellow lights. Those flicker. Go in sequence. It’s not neon. They are lit underneath the letters.”
They had to have a crane move it, AbuZaineh says. The letters are all part of one sign. They don’t come off individually. “The facing of the letters come off in case we need to change the lightbulbs.”
Those are who interested in the sign can come by and talk to him, AbuZaineh says. “I don’t believe anywhere we go we can put it up, honestly.”
Whoever buys it can wait until the end of the year to get it, or get it now. “We can have them take it down. Bring it down and show the community that we mean business. That this is going to be closed. The Peanut Shoppe on this location at 24 South Main Street will not be in existence by December 31st. The oldest business/landmark established on Main Street, it will be history. It will be the end of an era. We are forced to leave the premises. We have no other choice.”
The store, which opened in 1949, was the second store opened by Planters in Memphis, AbuZaineh says. He heard it originally was on Madison before moving to Main Street in 1951, but he’s not sure.
The AbuZaineh and Lauck families officially became the owners and partners of the establishment on January 8th, 1993, he says.
An engineer by trade, AbuZaineh had been in the restaurant business on the West Coast. When The Peanut Shoppe came up for sale in late 1992, AbuZaineh’s wife and brother-in-law came to Memphis for a visit. They looked at the shop while AbuZaineh stayed in California. Then they moved to Memphis.
Abuzaineh says they weren’t told until a few months before the sale that the building was going to be sold and would be turned into apartments and condos.
To date, around $8,125 has been raised on The Peanut Shoppe’s GoFundMe page.
And that ain’t peanuts.
“My brother-in-law and nephew from Canada participated in it. And also my nephew from Malaysia. They donated a good number.”
AbuZaineh is grateful to everyone “for participating and making it happen.”
As for The Peanut Shoppe signage, AbuZaineh says, “I have a neon sign inside. It’s a very, very, very old sign. It says ‘Planters Peanuts.’ It’s red.”
Is he keeping that one? “Heck, yeah. If I move to a new place, I will put the new transformer on it and we’ll display it lit all the time for our customers.”
