Coffee Dan’s 1961 T-Shirt

Coffee Dan's roots go back to when Daniel Davis, aka Coffee Dan, opened a cabaret in San Francisco in 1879 in the basement below his coffee shop. Eventually, Dan, and later his son, John, focused on the coffee shop and shuttered the cabaret. During WWII, war production saw a demand for 24-hour diners, and Coffee Dan’s began opening several locations in Los Angeles. Open all day, every day, the diners became popular with night shift workers during the war, and continued to be the hang-out spot for late night revelers post-war. Other locations opened around the country, and followed the same formula, but by the end of the '70s, all Coffee Dan’s closed. This design is based on the early '60s rebrand, which saw Coffee Dan as a cartoon mascot.