Restaurant Signs Atlanta

A restaurant sells an experience, and the sign is where that experience starts. Before a guest reads a menu or hears a greeting, they have already judged the place from the street. For most restaurants, signs are doing that work every hour the lights are on.

Altair Sign & Light has built restaurant signage across Metro Atlanta for more than 20 years from our own shop in Smyrna, with past work including Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and the Atlanta Braves All Star Cafe, alongside venue signage at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena and SunTrust Park.

Types of restaurant signs

The signs restaurants need usually fall into five groups, and a single location often uses all five.

• Storefront identification. Channel letter signs, building wall signs and awning signs. This is the sign restaurant guests see first, and it has to be legible after dark.
• Roadside and pylon. Pole signs and monument signs for locations set back from the road or sharing a plaza with other tenants.
• Menu and digital. Interior menu boards, drive-thru boards and LED and electronic signs for specials that change daily.
• Interior and atmosphere. Indoor signs covering neon-style feature pieces, bar backs, restroom and ADA identification, and branded wall graphics.
• Patio and promotional. A-frames, patio banners, window vinyl and seasonal boards. We also produce custom signs and graphics and vehicle wraps for delivery and catering fleets.

Restaurant sign design that carries the brand

Restaurant sign design is not just picking a font. It is deciding what your restaurant looks like from across a parking lot at nine at night. A neighborhood taqueria, a steakhouse and a fast casual chain need different weight, different illumination and different levels of detail.

We design custom restaurant signage from your existing brand, the architecture of the building and photographs of the actual site, then produce scaled renderings so you can see the custom restaurant sign in place before anything is fabricated. Because we manufacture in house, the approved design and the installed sign are the same thing.

Three details decide whether a restaurant sign performs:

• Night legibility — Most restaurant revenue arrives after dark. Face-lit letters, halo lighting and backlit panels each read very differently at night.
• Sight lines — A beautiful sign hidden behind a tree or angled away from oncoming traffic is a wasted budget.
• Consistency — The storefront, the patio signage, the menu board and the delivery vehicles should look like one restaurant.

Indoor and outdoor restaurant signage

Outdoor signs deal with sun, storms and Georgia humidity, so material selection and sealed electrical work decide how long they last. Exterior signage also falls under local ordinances that cap size, height and brightness, and those rules change from one Metro Atlanta jurisdiction to the next.

Indoor signage answers to different pressures. Menu content changes, kitchen grease and cleaning chemicals attack finishes, and guests read interior signs from a few feet away where every edge shows. We build menu systems so panels and inserts can be changed without replacing the frame.

Design, permitting, build and install under one roof

Restaurant openings run on fixed dates, and signage is one of the last items on the critical path. Altair keeps a full-time permit expediter in-house, which is the stage that most often delays a restaurant sign. Fabrication happens in our own shop, our installation crews mount and connect the sign, and sign repair and relamping keep it working afterwards. We also handle commercial lighting for patios and facades. Labor and materials both carry a warranty.

Request a quote

Tell us about your concept, your building and your opening date, and we will come back with a recommendation and a price. Contact Altair Sign & Light or call (770) 889-1212 to request a quote for custom restaurant signs in Atlanta.

FAQs

How long does a custom restaurant sign take?

Typically six to twelve weeks. Design and approval take one to three weeks, permitting is the least predictable stage, and fabrication and installation follow permit approval. Tell us your opening date early and we will work back from it.

Do I need a permit for a restaurant sign?

For anything on the exterior, almost always. Interior menu boards and window graphics usually do not need one, though some cities limit how much window area can be covered. We confirm the rules for your address before quoting.

What do custom signs for restaurant storefronts cost?

It depends on size, illumination, materials and mounting. A set of illuminated channel letters, a pylon sign and a vinyl window package sit at very different price points. We quote after seeing the site and the specifications.

Can you install signs in a leased space or shopping center?

Yes. Most centers have tenant signage criteria that limit size, materials and illumination. We work within those criteria and coordinate with the landlord as part of the project.

Do you make menu boards and drive-thru signage?

Yes. Interior menu systems, illuminated boards and digital displays are all part of what we build, and we design them so menu changes do not mean new hardware.

Can you service or update an existing sign?

Yes. We repair, relamp and reface existing signs regardless of who built them, which is the usual route when a restaurant rebrands or changes ownership.