Carl Helrich, the owner of Allegro Winery in Chanceford Township, just wanted a humorous sign for his delivery truck. He had no idea it would become internet famous.
The vinyl sign, written in a misleadingly professional font, reads: "In case of accident, bring cheese and crackers. Lots and lots of cheese and crackers."
"I think we knew it was going to be popular," said Emory Pajer, the graphic designer who created the sign. "We didn't know to what extent."
Helrich said the sign went on the delivery truck in early July, and on Sept. 9, someone with the username "Insatiable Sara" uploaded a photo of the truck onto Reddit, a website where registered users can post photos, videos and other content.
From Reddit, the photo made its way to the photo-sharing site Imgur, and spread like digital wildfire across a number of social media platforms.
The photo hit the big time Sept. 16 when the actor George Takei shared it on Facebook. Takei, best known as Starship Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek series, has a Facebook fan page with more than 7.7 million likes. As of about 8 p.m. Sept. 19, the photo of the Allegro truck has gotten more than 57,700 likes and more than 18,400 shares from Takei's page.
"Everybody on Facebook thinks it's funny," Helrich said. "Everybody makes jokes about causing an accident or driving up next to (the truck) with a cheese truck."
Continental Signs on 350 S. Albermarle St. in York produced Pajer's design, and Carey McCartney is the sales agent who worked with Pajer to produce the design. McCartney said her company produces several new vinyl vehicle decals a week, and she didn't think much of it at the time.
"Actually, I didn't think that it would be more popular than anything else," McCarntey said.
Allegro Winery owner Carl Helrich, left, is seen with Emory Pajer, the graphic designer who came up with a design for Allegro’s delivery truck that
Allegro Winery owner Carl Helrich, left, is seen with Emory Pajer, the graphic designer who came up with a design for Allegro's delivery truck that went viral on the web. (Brett sholtis — Daily record/sunday news)
Pajer said he came up with the idea the way all great ideas are made: by stealing other ideas. He saw a similar sign on an Iowa milk truck and thought that wine, cheese and crackers had a lot more appeal than spilled milk and chocolate chip cookies.
Helrich said the sign has gained him attention from as far away as France, where a newspaper contacted him about using the photo. A retailer in Colorado wanted to order Allegro wine after seeing the photo, but state laws prevent him from shipping the wine to them.
So far, he said, all the attention hasn't led to any increase in sales.
"Everybody says it's great," Helrich said. "Have we seen dollars in the cash register? No."
Helrich said that he doesn't do much advertising, and that if they get any more good ideas they will likely come about after an evening of sitting around drinking wine.
Pajer said he would like the Reddit user Insatiable Sara to come forward so that he can thank her — or him — with a free bottle of wine.