National and State Register

White Spot Restaurant

Denver County

Designed by architect Louis L. Armét of Los Angeles, California, the 1967 White Spot Restaurant is an excellent example of increasingly rare Googie style architecture. Popular during the 1950s and 1960s and influenced by car culture and the Space Age, the futuristic style originated in Southern California and spread across the United States, becoming a particularly popular style for coffee shops, diners, and motels near major commercial roadways through the 1970s.

Photo of the White Spot Restaurant in Denver

White Spot Restaurant

Representative features of the style embodied by the White Spot include the eye-catching roof form, large plate-glass windows, and playful interior design. A well-known and beloved place along East Colfax Avenue, the restaurant was part of a chain of Denver restaurants first established by William F. Clement in 1947 that comprised nine locations in 1967. After 1990, the building housed a number of restaurants until 1999, when Tom Messina opened Tom’s Diner, which continues to operate in the storied building today. The White Spot Restaurant is listed under the Commercial Resources of the East Colfax Avenue Corridor Multiple Property Submission.