Bill Johnson’s Big Apple made Phoenix unique

This week, Bill Johnson’s Big Apple Restaurant closed to make way for a parking lot. The land and building have been purchased by Gateway Community College , and some time in the next weeks or months, one of the last remaining landmarks in Phoenix will be razed in the name of progress.

For decades, the restaurant proudly presided over Van Buren Street, the first place most people saw when they drove into Phoenix. In those days the Van Buren was not a place of drugs and prostitutes, but the tourist center of Phoenix, populated by small motels called “tourist courts.” Read more >