In 1963 Leslie Buck, an Eastern European immigrant selling blank paper cups for the Sherri Cup Company in New York, noticed how many of the city’s diners, coffee shops, and food carts were run by Greek families who had arrived after World War II. To win their orders, he designed a cup just for them: blue and white like the Greek flag, a Greek key border around the rims, an ancient two handled pitcher at the center, three steaming cups, and the slogan We Are Happy To Serve You in angular lettering meant to evoke carved inscriptions, with a sigma standing in for the letter E.

The pitcher was an amphora, but Buck’s accent turned the word into Anthora, and the company kept it. By 1994 Sherri was selling 500 million a year, and rivals copied the look with discus throwers, the Parthenon, and slogans like It Is Our Pleasure To Serve You. Buck never received a design royalty but prospered on sales commissions, and when he retired in 1992 the company printed 10,000 custom Anthoras honoring his career. After Sherri was acquired by the Solo Cup Company, sales fell to about 200 million by 2005, and Solo halted regular production in 2006 before nostalgia prompted a limited restart in 2015.

• The cup became instant shorthand for New York in film and television.
• In 2003 Graham Hill of Exception Lab made a ceramic replica with a fake paper seam, sold at the Museum of Modern Art’s design shop.
• NBC commissioned a version with its peacock and the Olympic rings for the 2004 Athens Games.
• The cup appeared in a Clark Art Institute exhibition on classical themes in everyday modern life.
• Solo was later absorbed by Dart Container, and Buck died in 2010.