Your 5 basic types of funny sidewalk chalkboard signs

Those cute sidewalk chalkboard signs are everywhere these days. Personally, I’m a huge fan of these chalkboard signs.  If a restaurant has one, I’m more likely to check it out. Who doesn’t love a personal touch in place of a boring, standard sign or menu?

After you see enough of these, you start to notice a pattern. Well, to be frank, we think about signs a lot. I thought I would share our expert findings: the five main types of funny sidewalk chalkboard signs.

1. The superhero/pop culture reference cafe sign

Have you seen your favorite superheros or cartoon characters on cafe signs like these? These nostalgic nods to your childhood lure you in so well that you have to get something no matter what the restaurant’s health rating is.

Even though winter’s coming soon to New York (shivers!), check out this cool Game of Thrones-themed Starbucks sidewalk chalkboard sign:

Is that Joffrey Baratheon or Ned Stark on the Iron Throne? Ned’s dead. Must be Joffrey. But how long does he have to live (via TheBoredNinja)?

The international mass market coffee business is a lot like Game of Thrones.  Starbucks is clearly sitting atop the iron throne as the undisputed and ruthless tyrant of the global coffee chain industry.  But now many of its competitors from kingdoms all across the world want to claim the throne for themselves?  Whether its Pete’s Coffee, McDonald’s McCafé, Panera or Caribou Coffee, it’s only a matter of time before Starbucks and its barbarian army of ingenious marketers and hipster baristas are slain and dethroned.

What I do know for sure is that this final battle will most certainly involve white walkers and dragons. But who will have the most coffee shops on any given block in ten years? Who knows. That’s why its called the Game of Thrones.

2. The chalkboard sign that incorporates social media

There’s always that crazed rabble-rouser on Yelp who was served a couple seconds late and had to troll his feelings out all over the interwebs .

Plenty of chalkboard signs these days incorporate social media as marketing tools to persuade people to eat at their establishments or to subsidize their meals in some way (with a like, a tweet, a check-in or maybe even a +1). Sometimes they’re also used to dissuade people from doing awfully stupid things like uploading pictures of their food on Instagram. Ladies: nobody cares.

What is this, 2011? Instagraming pictures of your food was only cool before Facebook bought Instagram in early 2012 (via ModernMan).

3. That chalkboard bar sign that wants you to be the alcoholic you can be

There are thousands of funny and creative chalkboard bar signs out there to entice you to come inside and have a drink. Beer this way, real life that way. Whisky is just sunlight held together by water (via KegWorks).

I’ve always joked with college friends that if things are going well, you should have a drink to celebrate. And if you’re having a bad day, you should have a drink to blow off some steam. The guys who wrote that sign definitely understand me.

4. The sign that wants to get you buzzed on caffeine and fails

Isn’t this a weak excuse to get people to try to drink your crap coffee (via BuzzFeed)?

All that pink text looks so alone on a black, barren chalkboard. Sad Face. Is this at least a little bit funny? I suppose, but if these guys were serious, they would at least try to depict the euphoria that their coffee delivers to tired, cranky customers. This shows no effort. SMH.

5. The hipster-deriding coffee shop sign

Hipsters are well known for their flannels, boots and ripped jeans. They are also recognized for wielding a large cup of coffee in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.  When hipsters play with fire they get burned.

I personally find it strange that a coffee shop would deliberately alienate a substantial chunk of its customer base. Everyone knows that without hipsters, Starbucks stock would lose over 23.5% of its value. Hipsters just can’t put a good cup of coffee down.  Ergo, burned tongues.