Being stuck in Interstate 4 traffic used to be a little less stressful when you could be comforted by yeasty smell of freshly baked bread.
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Mmmmm.
It was in 1960 that American Bakeries broke ground for its Merita Bread plant right along what would become Interstate 4.
The bakery was easy to spot by the Kaley Street exit with its giant 18-foot tall and 30-foot wide neon-lighted Merita Bread sign which served as a beacon for five decades.
“When Orlandoans see that big, curvy red Merita from Interstate 4 after a trip to the west coast of Florida, we know we are home,” former Orlando Sentinel staffer Joy Wallace Dickinson wrote in 2002. “The Merita Bread sign, the enchilada grande of vintage Orlando signs, has become beloved in part because of the homey aroma that often accompanies a glimpse of it from I-4. Along with the smell of baking bread, Mertia gives us the time and temperature, too.”
When it was first built, the sign said “Bread & Cake” and it had a round clock on top. Like many of the distinctive neon signs across Central Florida, it was designed by Bob Galler, who also dreamed up the star that hangs over Orange Avenue during the Christmas season.
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The Merita bakery closed in 2012 and the iconic sign was taken down in 2014 and preserved by the Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park.
It returned briefly to downtown Orlando in February 2025 as part of the Immerse festival.
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