Entering the sprawling new Sign Bar in far East Austin is like visiting an amusement park with no rides, or maybe a museum without a curator. The outdoor space is vast—its boundaries defined by shipping containers—in a part of the city that’s mostly full of auto shops. As you enter, you’re met with an avatar that might be familiar if you drove up South Lamar Boulevard anytime between 1997 and 2020: the dark-haired, legless statue of a woman that once beckoned diners to Maria’s Taco Xpress. She’s flanked, sentry-like, by a human-size figure of a gnome wearing a hat with the Lavaca Street Bar logo on his pointy little head and a Bob’s Big Boy wearing checkered overalls and holding a burger aloft. Entering the gate,…The post Is Sign Bar Celebrating or Capitalizing On Austin’s History? appeared first on Texas Monthly.