Retro Vibes

Stafford Crossing Community Church in Fredericksburg, VA recently walked through the book of Luke in a series titled Dinner with Jesus. To visually capture the theme of meals with Jesus, Chris and the team designed a stage that looked like a classic 1950’s diner. With checkered tiles, metallic accents, neon signs, and even a retro booth, their design brought warmth and creativity to both their main worship center and their Spanish Campus.

In the summer of 2025, our church walked through the book of Luke, looking at Jesus’ interactions with people over meals, in a series entitled, “Dinner with Jesus”. The graphic we designed looked like a 50’s diner and so we decided that our stage should reflect that look. When we design, we have to adapt the design to a second, smaller room used by our Spanish Campus.

Our blank canvas is usually black walls. We decided the lower section could give the illusion of the diner well. The lowest section was set with alternating black and white peel and stick tiles. The tiles were purchased at Walmart at a cost of $250. We did find the adhesive on the tiles to be lacking, so we ended up tacking the tiles in the corner with small nails.

Above that section of tiles, we painted a bright red stripe and placed a 4 inch board in the center. We covered the board with metallic vinyl wrap. The wrap was purchased on Amazon. The wrap had to be stapled to the board.

We also purchased a printed sign of the logo of the series from Fast Signs to hang on the back wall. That sign cost us about $300.

Our main stage is not deep, so doing at lot of design elements across the back is difficult, but our wings give us places to add some pieces to add to the design. We purchased a number of diner style signs from Amazon and a couple neon signs. The cost of these signs was about $300 for this room and our Spanish campus room. In addition, we created a small counter and purchased stools ($55 each  and other small items (purchased from Amazon and from Target for about $50) The booth was purchased off Facebook Marketplace for $100. It was painted red and the stripes were created with duct tape.

The cost of the set for both rooms was in the $1500 range.