February 19, 2023 · 11:34 am

Trash, garbage, and waste

Running a restaurant is messy. Dealing with garbage, trash, grease, unsold food, and food left on patrons’ plates is unpleasant, expensive, and depressing. [above: toy dumpster]

This topic has been haunting me ever since I read the following sentence in an 1877 newspaper: “The harbor of New-York is made unhealthy by the decaying food of hotels.”

That was still the era of American-plan hotels where meals were included with lodging. It cost nothing extra if a hotel guest ordered everything available, saying, “Bring me some oysters on the half-shell, green turtle soup, some clam chowder, some halibut steak, green goose and apple sauce, lambs’ fries, sweet potatoes, egg-plant, succotash, stewed tomatoes, Roquefort cheese, lemon pudding, cranberry pie, cakes, watermelon, and French bread.” Most of the dishes ended up sampled but otherwise uneaten and were thrown out. European visitors were invariably horrified.

The notable exception to the American waste of food was the Chinese cook, commonly found in restaurant kitchens throughout the West in the 19th century. He was hailed for being “the most economical buyer imaginable,” one who “uses up what he has and wastes almost nothing.” When he was in the kitchen, little garbage resulted.

But there was not always a clear definition of garbage, revealing another, less savory way of reducing its output. Some lowly restaurants, even as late as the 1930s, considered food left on patrons’ plates perfectly okay to serve to guests once again, though possibly in a different format such as soup or hash. This practice led discriminating guests to avoid ordering hash unless it was on the menu of a first-class, shiny modern restaurant.

Over time, it became a violation of sanitary codes to serve anything left anywhere on a guest’s table, which would include untouched baskets of bread. And, increasingly, the practice of feeding kitchen scraps and plate scrapings to pigs or – in the case of unordered entrees – donating them to churches and centers providing charity meals, was ruled out.

The prevention of edible food waste in restaurants has become a goal at various times in past history. Both of the 20th-century’s world wars, when food and restaurant prices rose, brought attention to food waste in homes and eating places. Another decade of concern was the 1970s when rapid inflation caused consumer prices to soar at the same time Americans became aware of the problem of hunger here and around the world. [above: Cathy comic strip]

Most of the time, though, everything went into trash cans, or dumpsters. They arrived on the scene thanks to the Dempster brothers who developed their Dempster Dumpster in the 1930s. But note the fish hanging out of the toy dumpster shown above. That would cause problems for a restaurant manager who would be certain to get complaints from neighbors about the stench if the lid wasn’t kept firmly closed. In 1968 a Chicago neighbor of Chances R begged a newspaper’s help column to “use your magic wand” to deal with the eatery’s “fetid” smelling garbage cans that were “overflowing and left uncovered.”

Another problem restaurants – and municipalities — had to deal with was kitchen grease building up and clogging drain pipes. As early as 1883, some cities took action to keep grease out of city systems. That year St. Paul MN adopted a requirement that a grease trap “be constructed under the sink of every hotel, eating house, restaurant or other public cooking establishment.”

Traps are designed to separate water from a sink from the grease floating in it, permitting the grease to build up into a semi-solid block that can be removed periodically by a service that disposes of it. Disposal, though, could be a thorny problem of its own at times as town dumps closed down. Also, fly-by-night collectors sometimes deposited grease along roadsides.

Eventually, slowly, other states, cities, and towns enacted grease trap ordinances similar to St. Paul’s. And yet trapless restaurants continued to exist. It was only in the 1980s, after years of official pressure, that half a dozen restaurants in Hingham MA installed grease traps. The harbor was too handy! About that same time restaurant grease restaurant grease threatened operation of the sewage treatment plant in Fort Myers FL. [restaurant at the Hingham Yacht Club shown above]

Fortunately, getting rid of cooking oil turned out to be easier since the contents of an outdoor rendering can may be recycled and used for fuel. [above: grease and oil containers]

In the 1960s throwaway paper bags, napkins, cups, and straws, as well as plastic lids and small servings of sugar and condiments proliferated, especially with the spread of fast food outlets that eliminated dish washing and laundry. Even table-service restaurants got into the act with custom printed placemats and individual packets of crackers and breadsticks. [below, Sardi’s, NYC, 1962]

Litter at drive-in restaurants was a chronic problem that led neighbors to complain. Towns drafted ordinances to control the problem, such as one in Michigan in 1965 that targeted “paper cups, straws, napkins, garbage, beverages and all other waste matter intended for disposal which, if not placed in a proper receptacle, tends to create a nuisance by rendering property unclean, unsafe and unsightly.”

Although single-serve packages caused waste, they were advertised as a solution to waste in that they prevented restaurants from having to throw out leftover or mishandled condiments, crackers, etc. That was also a frequent claim made by companies that produced frozen entrees for restaurants that would not be taken out of the freezer until ordered by a patron, preventing the restaurant from preparing food that no one wanted.

What is fascinating is industry’s response to restaurants’ problems with waste, smells, and general ickiness. There was no end of advertisements in trade magazines promising to do away with all the problems. One that made me laugh with its slogan “Smash Your Trash” was the Can-O-Rid Can and Bottle Crusher that reduced trash volume and hauling charges by crushing jugs and bottles “to bits.”

The Stomach, a 1970s counterculture vegetarian restaurant in Portland OR, found a different kind of solution to handling garbage. They composted it and suggested customers who were organic gardeners should feel free to “raid the restaurant’s garbage pail.” In 1973 a grease hauling company in Houston adopted the slogan “Recycling for a Better Tomorrow for the Benefit of Mankind”.

Alas, today restaurants still struggle with waste, trash, grease, and garbage.

© Jan Whitaker, 2023

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February 5, 2023 · 11:29 am

America’s literary chef

One way or another Othello Pollard found ways to make a big impression in Cambridge MA in his relatively short tenure there as a caterer and restaurateur.

In 1794 he was listed as a member of The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, in Philadelphia, said to be the first “African” church in America. A short time later he came to the Boston area, marrying a woman in 1799 who kept a boarding house there.

Although I couldn’t find anything about where he was born, I suspect he may have been a freed slave from Haiti, then known as Saint Dominigue.

In 1801 he and his wife moved to a site on Tremont Street in Cambridge MA across from “the mall,” a shaded walk. They were near the Columbian Museum, which housed wax figures and advertised “curiosities” that included an elephant that drank liquor.

Othello knew how to get attention, for instance by wearing a diamond pinkie ring. In 1802, about six months before he established his eating place “for ladies and gentlemen,” he advertised an attraction perhaps inspired by the Museum: a live leopard.

Maybe the leopard was not as big a draw as he had hoped, though, because in August 1802 he placed an elaborate advertisement for his “Attic Bower” supplied with “epicurean dainties” such as bread, butter, cheese, ham, tongue, ice cream, custards, “whip syllabubs,” pies, jellies, olives, pickles and all kinds of fruit, along with wine, brandy, gin, ice punch, cordials, spirits, bitters, and porter.

His advertisement was peppered with classical allusions and Latin phrases, such as in the above excerpt, roughly translated, “Where are you taking me, Bacchus?” According to The Wine Bible, ancient Falernian wine was so sought after in its time that “you practically had to be the emperor of Rome to get a taste,” so his claim to have some might have been a gimmick.

A short time later, he ran a longer advertisement with an expanded bill of fare [shown above] that included heartier food – introduced under intriguing headings – and indicated to patrons what kinds of money he would take in exchange.

No one could quite decide if he had composed his unusual advertisements himself, or whether the author was one of his regular visitors from Harvard who, perhaps, offered his writing skills as payment while short of funds.

When a fire wiped out his Attic Bower in 1803 he moved farther along Tremont, next door to a tavern, and appealed once again to “gentlemen of delicate taste, and well educated appetites.”

A little more than a year later, he moved again in the same general vicinity. In 1805 he notified Harvard students that he would not be able to entertain graduates as he had done for the past four years because he did not have enough space.

His last location seemed to be in Boston, where I found an advertisement for his coffee house in 1805. He simply mentioned having turtle soup, worded with what could be read as a resigned tone. Then he just seemed to disappear. He still remains a mystery, even though articles recalling him continued to appear as late as 1908.

© Jan Whitaker, 2023

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January 22, 2023 · 12:09 pm

The smörgåsbord saga

Swedes began immigrating from rural Sweden to the United States in significant numbers in the 1870s, but it took a while before Swedish smörgåsbords were introduced to the American public. The earliest ones opened in cities in the 1910s, but even in the 1930s proprietors still found it necessary to explain the concept to Americans who were not of Swedish ancestry.

In 1912 a self-proclaimed high-class Swedish restaurant called Henry’s opened in New York City [advertisement 1918]. There had been earlier Swedish restaurants in the city but they appeared to serve workers and were unlikely to have offered smörgåsbord. In 1915 another first-class restaurant opened in New York, Scandia, headed by Gerda Simonson. It was the first known restaurant of its kind run by a woman.

It is somewhat surprising that these early examples were in New York City since both Chicago and Minneapolis had larger populations of Swedish immigrants. But it’s likely that at that time NYC restaurants were better able to attract travelers from abroad as well as Swedes living there.

Despite the presence of a Swedish restaurant with a smörgåsbord at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, there do not seem to have been many such restaurants in Chicago until the 1920s. They were also evident in Rockford IL. As was true of tea rooms, many were run by women. The Bit of Sweden in Chicago, opened in 1925, billed itself as a tea room, but of course Prohibition was in effect, ruling out the smörgåsbord’s classic accompaniment to herring, a shot of Aquavit. The number of smörgåsbord restaurants increased during the 1930s, particularly after Prohibition ended. [pictured:Rococo House, run by the same woman who introduced Bit of Sweden]

At first it seemed that Swedish restaurants in the U.S. relied heavily on patrons of Swedish ancestry who enjoyed them on Sunday evenings. [above Rockford IL, 1928; kropkokn is a cake] Gradually they drew a non-Swedish clientele, many of whom had as much trouble with the concept of smörgåsbord as they did with its pronunciation.

At their finest, smörgåsbord restaurants achieved a high level of artistic beauty in food presentation as is evident in the above photograph of a New York restaurant in 1939.

Newspaper stories had appeared in the late 19th century explaining that Swedish steamships and hotels furnished smörgåsbord as appetizers before a meal. Patrons took a small plate with a slice of bread and then selected a few items to eat while standing, accompanied with a strong drink and beer. They might have seconds but they did not eat so much that they spoiled their appetite for a full meal which they would soon order from their table.

Non-Swedish Americans, however, tended to see the smörgåsbord as a meal in itself, piling their plates high and often returning for more. Soon restaurants adapted by pricing the smörgåsbord separately. For a higher price, patrons could precede a dinner with smörgåsbord if they chose to. In the 1930s the Bit of Sweden restaurant in Los Angeles went to some trouble to explain how it all worked, devoting a page of its menu to this, and instructing patrons that the correct pronunciation was SMIR-GOES-BOORD (rather than SMAR-GUS-BORD). The restaurant charged $1.50 for smörgåsbord with dinner, or $1.00 without, and included a warning on its instructions page that customers had better eat all they took or they would be charged extra.

Other stories also appeared in the 1930s with instructions on how to handle smörgåsbords. In 1948 well known food journalist Clementine Paddleford explained what she learned from the daughter of the manager of NY’s Three Crowns Restaurant — which made its debut at the 1939 NY World’s Fair. She was told there was a system to choosing from its famed 100 items. First, she wrote, take pickled herring and a bit of herring salad along with a boiled potato with sour cream. On the second visit, more fish – maybe shrimp, sardines, smoked salmon, and a marinated mussel. Trip three might be hot dishes, but alternatively could be cold meats, salads, and cheeses if the diner was planning a fourth trip for hot food.

Decades later, smörgåsbord restaurants could still be found, but it seems that the idea of freely choosing food from a spread was being taken over by low-price, no-frills, all-you-can-eat buffets. Some, such as the Sir George’s chain called themselves smörgåsbords, but others named themselves “smorgies.” I doubt many, if any, were owned or operated by Swedish-Americans. [above, Sir George’s in Hemet CA]

As for authenticity, Tracy Nicole Poe explained in her 1999 dissertation that even the early examples of smörgåsbords in the U.S. represented an “invented tradition.” She wrote: “Like other elements of Swedish-American ethnicity . . . the smorgasbord’s origins are more a product of the National Romantic Ideal, and its rituals more concocted from the imagination of community leaders, than they are manifestations of rural immigrant culture. The fact is, most Scandinavian immigrants would probably never have attended an actual smörgåsbord in the classic nineteenth century European sense.”

On the other hand, I think the all-you-can-eat smörgåsbord derivative, though invented, is a genuine representation of American culture.

© Jan Whitaker, 2023

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January 8, 2023 · 11:29 am

Meals along the way

On Monday, October 6, 1834, Charles Shipman and his two teenage daughters, Joanna and Betsey, left Athens, Ohio, for Philadelphia. Charles went there twice a year to buy goods for his general store. They traveled in their two-horse carriage and would not return until November 15, by which time they had been through the mountains, traveled by steamship, visited Washington and Baltimore, and met with President Andrew Jackson.

Their usual plan was to get up early, travel for a while and then stop for breakfast and dinner at an inn or tavern. Their main meal was mid-day dinner. They ate “supper” wherever they were staying for the night. They stayed at inns, hotels, and for their longest stay, in Philadelphia, at a boarding house where their meals were supplied.

The meals in taverns and inns in small towns were surely humble. Joanna kept a record of their travels, more of a log of times and distances than a diary of subjective impressions and descriptive details. It’s disappointing that she was not inclined to record much about what they ate on their travels, but there are some interesting bits.

On their fourth day of travel they stopped in Morristown OH for breakfast at 9 a.m. Joanna writes: “Found some tomato preserves on the table, at first thought they were very good, but after tasting again concluded to the contrary.” On Joanna’s initial recommendation, Betsey ate some of the preserves but later told her sister that they made her feel sick.

That evening they arrived in Wheeling – now in West Virginia, but then Virginia – and stayed in a “very good country tavern” where Joanna reported she “Ate too much supper, and that with rainy weather and miserable roads makes me feel a little homesick.”

In the journal it becomes clear that the sisters were prone to feeling homesick and anxious – about traveling through the mountains, staying in cities, meeting people, and being on steamboats. Joanna found Smithfield VA, and then Petersburg VA where they stayed overnight, depressing: “Have had the horrors all day.” Seeing a fire from their window in Philadelphia, Joanna recorded that she and Betsey were “frightened out of our wits.”

Did anything thrill the sisters on what was probably their first trip outside Ohio? Joanna certainly shows no excitement about meeting “Old Hickory,” the President, and simply records that after shaking hands, and “looking at him as long as we cared to, we left his August presence and went into the yard.”

Joanna writes with a restrained tone, yet it’s clear she has a sense of humor. The Shipmans met with various people along the way. After one of them, a man who “ogled his eyes” when he looked at the sisters, told them he planned a future visit to Ohio, Joanna writes, “So now look sharp, Miss Betsey.”

On the way to Fredericktown MD, they stayed overnight at an inn. Joanna recorded her simple breakfast the next morning as “a piece of bread, strong [i.e, rancid] butter, peach sauce and a cup of milk.”

At that point they were about to reach that part of their trip that took them to larger cities. But I feel certain that they had no interest in exploring urban dining as itemized on the 1834 bill of fare of the Adelphi Coffee House in Philadelphia [shown above]. It gives a good idea of choice dishes of that time, but since the coffee house was also a drinking place it would have been forbidden territory for this family. Charles Shipman was a dedicated temperance follower who refused to handle alcohol in his store.

Upon reaching Baltimore the next evening, they had trouble finding a hotel that was not full, but on the third try discovered a new place called Page’s that had just opened. Joanna described it as “the most splendid house my little eyes ever beheld.” They had a private parlor and meals brought to their room. But despite these positive aspects, she wrote “It nearly frightens us out of our wits to go all through [the hotel]. Betsey says she never thought she was raised in the woods to be scared at an owl, but she has found tonight that she was.”

Their 11-day stay in Philadelphia included some strange-sounding entertainments. At the Hall of Independence they viewed dogs powering cloth making, and an automaton that wrote. The next day they went to Washington Hall where they saw speaking and dancing puppets and “the exhibition of the burning of Moscow.”

Their father offered Joanna and Betsey a trip to New York City, but they turned it down, preferring to head for home.

Leaving Philadelphia they returned to Washington, beginning their journey homeward. They stayed in a large hotel, Brown’s Indian Queen Inn, but did not record anything about it. Traveling through Virginia they stopped at Warm Springs, where they were weighed so they could see how much they gained at dinner. Charles (119½), Betsey (109), and Joanna, (118½) each added from 1 to 1½ pounds to their slight frames. They stayed overnight in the springs region, eating “a real country breakfast” the next morning. Then, for dinner at White Sulphur Springs, they “were treated to some fresh pork fried, some fresh beef fried, some light bread and some milk, rather tough this, as I look at it,” recorded Joanna.

Only two days from home, they stopped at Wilson’s Hotel in Charleston for dinner. She reported “the way dinner was served was a ‘touch above the vulgar.’” I would not think that was a resounding compliment.

Joanna was more than thrilled to get back home to her mother and brother.

© Jan Whitaker, 2023

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December 25, 2022 · 10:58 am

Dinner in Miami, Dec. 25, 1936

Judging from the number of restaurants and hotel dining rooms advertising Christmas or Xmas dinner that year, there must have been quite a few prospective diners around. It was still the Depression but prohibition had ended several years earlier, tourism was well underway, and Art Deco buildings were going up all over.

The not-at-all modernistic Old Heidelberg shown above – which had opened in the unfortunate year of 1929 — gave no details about its offerings that day, other than to characterize it as an “Old-Fashioned Dinner.” That’s a fairly meaningless description if you ask me. Given that Germany had withdrawn citizenship from Jews in 1935, this probably was not a restaurant popular with Miami’s Jewish community.

Most of the advertisements mentioned price, not surprising since most people had to watch their spending. They ranged from a low of 50¢ per person to a high of $2.00 at a place called the Rose Bowl, a restaurant specializing in Southern dishes, with a woman serving bread dressed as a “mammy.” Like the Heidelberg, the Rose Bowl made no effort in its Christmas advertisements to tout its dinner or whatever other attractions it might have possessed.

Others went to great length to attract diners. The Big And Little Grill had no end of attractions, including music, “gifts to all,” free parking, a chef who had formerly worked at a New Hampshire resort hotel, and a Santa Claus who once appeared in Charlie Chaplin’s movie “Circus.” All dinners were 75¢. The list of comestibles filled ten wide lines of text. It contained 35 separate items, among them a “Big and Little Salad,” Boiled Lobster Stuffed with Oysters, Supreme of Sole Florentine, Sizzling Steak with Wine, and numerous vegetables and desserts.

The Big and Little offered an equally good deal for its New Year’s celebration, with a return performance of Charlie Little, now in the role of clown. As for its advertisement, as a New Englander I’m obligated to point out that there is no Dixieville in New Hampshire – it’s Dixville.

Attraction-wise, the Big and Little was hard to top. But George’s Restaurant tried hard, with even more inches of advertising, not to mention wine and bottled beer. Its 75¢ dinner comprised six courses: Cocktail (tomato juice, half grapefruit, etc.); a soup accompanied by olives and hearts of celery; a choice of five entrees that included Whole Broiled Lobster, Maitre d’Hotel (chances are these were clawless Florida lobsters, considered inferior to Maine’s); a salad; eight vegetables; choice of many desserts (six kinds of pie, a cake, a sundae, ice creams, jello, or stewed prunes). For those who didn’t have big appetites there was George’s Special 50¢ Dinner, which of course offered fewer choices and only half a lobster, but still looked like a bargain.

The Studio Grill’s turkey dinner included wine, which may have accounted for the $1.00 charge. Shortly after it opened a few years earlier, the suburban Miami curb service eatery had advertised for “Girls with Blonde Hair” who were 5’6″ tall, weighed 118 lbs., and had “striking” personalities. Undoubtedly reflecting Depression conditions, 800 showed up. The grill was owned by a magazine cover illustrator and was filled with his paintings of nude women.

The Laura Jacobsen Café, a high-class Chicago transplant, was located in a residential apartment hotel. Her Christmas dinner in the ritzy-looking Colonial Towers accommodating snowbirds from the North was $1.25.

Wherever and whatever you may eat, I hope you will enjoy your holiday dinner.

© Jan Whitaker, 2022

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December 11, 2022 · 11:53 am

An early restaurateur’s rise & fall

Life in the 19th century was chaotic and unpredictable in so many respects, but the weird and eventful life and restaurant career of the highly enterprising Mark Langdon Winn, with its succession of ups, downs, and strange twists, would stand out in any century.

As far as his many business schemes went, he never stuck with any of them for long, restaurants included. He bounced around Maine, Boston, New York City, Albany NY, San Francisco, Virginia City NV, and finally back to New York City where he died in 1881. His San Francisco restaurants were the most successful of his enterprises, but despite their promise he held onto them only for about six years.

Before going to California he owned two grocery stores in Boston. Next he went to New York City where in 1843 and 1844 he manufactured and sold a cure-all product called Winn’s Irish Vegetable Relief Candy, good for “weakness of the chest and lungs, liver complaint(s), asthmatic affection, impurities of the blood, dyspepsia and all bowel complaints.”

Maybe restless, disappointed by candy sales, or lured by gold, he took off for San Francisco in 1849, age 34, after leaving Albany where his wife and children remained for another couple of years. Borrowing money from a shipmate upon arrival, he began making candy and peddling it in the streets. After a short time he had enough money to open a confectionery with a partner. Before long he was running the business solo and had added bakery goods and simple meals to his offerings.

Fires were frequent occurrences in San Francisco and he was burned out at both of his initial locations in less than a year. In 1851 he opened his principal restaurant on Long Wharf, calling it Winn’s Fountain Head. Despite the abundance of eating places in the city, it rose to prominence rapidly due to its respectability, cleanliness, and relatively low prices. It was unique in heavy-drinking San Francisco for providing no alcoholic beverages. Winn was a dedicated temperance advocate, always emphasizing the cause in his frequent, wordy newspaper advertisements that often contained sermons on the evils of drink.

The Fountain Head was not fancy. Long Wharf (aka Commercial Street) was hardly a fine location. It was a busy street without sidewalks, filled with liquor saloons, gambling dens, and all-night stores. It vibrated with “a heterogeneous crowd” of carriages, horses, carts, and pedestrians. A writer in the March 1854 issue of The Pioneer wondered “Why there are not a dozen or two broken necks there daily.”

The Fountain Head was open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to midnight, with a menu that included a wide range of meats and vegetables, along with puddings bearing such homely names as Aunt Sally’s and Cousin Jane’s. According to a ca. 1853 menu, an order of roast beef, veal, or corned beef and cabbage cost 25c, while most vegetables were 12c.

According to the city’s Commercial Advertiser in April, 1854, the Winn enterprises — by then comprising the main Fountain Head restaurant and a more elegant “Branch” welcoming women with fancy desserts – had attained the pinnacle of success. Together, the story reported, the two places served 3,000 patrons daily, taking in $57,000 a month, and paying out monthly as much as $1,600 for advertising, $8,000 for meat, $4,000 for milk, $3,000 for potatoes, and $2,000 for ice.

But this account was misleading because only a few months later Winn went into bankruptcy.

Following bankruptcy he started up at a new address, combining the Fountain Head and its Branch into one. But things soon turned sour again. In Spring 1856, he and his new business partner dissolved their partnership with the partner taking over the business. Almost immediately after that, Winn’s wife Eliza took advantage of a California law that allowed women to run businesses independently, declaring that she would carry on the “Fountainhead Confectionery and Steam Candy Manufactory” in her name. It appears she continued to run the business of making and selling baked goods and confectionery until 1859. He may have briefly tried to make a comeback at his original address, but in 1859 the Fountain Head on Commercial Street and a confectionery run by Eliza Winn were put up for sale.

Years later, in a Poughkeepsie NY newspaper story of 1878, Mark Winn would blame the failure of his San Francisco restaurants on employees who robbed him. “Every man I employed was a thief,” he said, singling out his secretary, cashier, and cook. With honest help, he claimed, “I would have been worth a half a million of dollars.”

But the Winns’ western odyssey wasn’t over after leaving San Francisco. In 1860 they moved to the boomtown Virginia City, Nevada, where silver had just been discovered. There, Mark Winn struck silver, opened a restaurant and confectionery called Winn’s Fountain Head, Jr., and invested in a hotel. The hotel soon relocated to another city in Nevada and he lost his investment. The fate of the restaurant is unknown but it did not achieve fame as he had done in San Francisco [1864 advertisement]. He tried to sell shares in his silver mine, advertising that “there is no doubt that within the next six months a fair dividend will be made to the stockholders.”

Apparently he didn’t strike it rich, though, because after five years in Virginia City he filed for insolvency and the Winns returned to San Francisco where he began work on the invention of a shampooing device that was patented in 1871 [shown above].

Next, the couple moved to New York City where he deteriorated rapidly, living in destitution and displaying signs of paranoia that had been in evidence as far back as 1854 when he referred to his “enemies” in an advertisement for the Fountain Head. On one occasion he was arrested as a public nuisance, wandering the streets of New York wearing “armor” and a tin helmet (possibly the shampooing device?) while distributing religious tracts. He spent his final days in the Alms House on Blackwell Island where he was described as suffering from “religious mania.” It also came out that his father had been an alcoholic.

Despite the uneven contours of his career as a restaurateur, Winn’s Fountain Head has become a subject of interest, often mentioned positively in a number of books and articles that tell of San Francisco’s early history. It’s presented as a triumphal success, when really it’s a boom and bust story sadly common in the restaurant business.

© Jan Whitaker, 2022

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November 27, 2022 · 1:30 pm

Runaway menu prices

Restaurant prices are rising during the current inflationary period, but this is scarcely the first time. In fact it’s at least the fourth in little more than a century.

The first was during World War I, particularly after the war ended. In response, many restaurants teamed up for cooperative buying to keep costs under control to a degree. Drugstore soda fountains and other inexpensive eating places gained a thriving lunch business, while first-class restaurants raised prices as they whisked away frills including cloth tablecloths and napkins. The average restaurant operator’s motto became “simpler, cheaper, faster.” In New York, the venerable Mouquin’s hiked steak prices, charging $4.50 for a porterhouse steak with mushrooms that had historically been only $1.00.

The tough business climate combined with Prohibition caused the closure of droves of fancy restaurants such as Delmonico’s, which had been sliding for a while.

Complaints mounted. In 1920 Chicago’s city hall called restaurateurs on the carpet to explain their high charges, as the “Carry-Your-Lunch” movement grew. Boston put a U.S. District Attorney on the job to investigate prices at the city’s popular restaurants, including The Puritan and The Pilgrim.

Restaurant workers wanted raises, but it was a bad climate for strikes. Chicago’s 1000-seat faux-luxe North American Restaurant sacked their striking waiters and installed a cafeteria line. Their advertising copy assured customers they didn’t need to tip because “There was no one there to tip.” At the same time the North American’s advertising championed low prices, the ballyhooed bargain-priced “whole baby lobster” shrank to half a baby lobster. Did they think customers wouldn’t notice?

Although World War II also raised restaurant prices, that did not dampen patronage by war workers who enjoyed higher wages than ever. The president of the Society of Restaurateurs reported that from 1941 to 1944 New York City’s 19,000 restaurants went from serving 3 million to 8 million meals a day.

Soon the federal Office of Price Administration tried to control prices at restaurants across the country by freezing them to April 4-10, 1943, levels. Restaurateurs found ways to skirt regulations by reducing portions and substituting “blue plate” specials for what had previously been a regular meal including appetizer and dessert. In addition to reducing food costs, the move also saved a lot of dishwashing. Quality and sanitation went down as patrons mobbed restaurants severely short staffed due to military recruitment and the lure of defense industry jobs. High prices continued through 1948 as did meat rationing. [Britling advertisement, 1942]

The “stagflation” of the 1970s was still to come, with inflation accompanying a stagnating economy – a situation similar to what some economists see looming today.

In 1970 consumer prices rose steadily, especially for food and restaurant meals. Soon New York maitre d’s became friendlier and even the city’s rich began to complain about costs. A wealthy woman who had never paid attention to prices and customarily ate out six or more times a week became angry at being charged over $4 for a melon wrapped with prosciutto at the Plaza’s Oak Room. A nationwide Gallup survey found that a substantial percentage of restaurant goers had cut back on evening dinners out.

A few years later famous NYC restaurants including the Colony and Le Pavillon failed. At the same time Chinese restaurants were prospering. Across the country, salad bars became popular as did fast food outlets and restaurants specializing in dishes such as pizza, pasta, and tacos. Books recommending inexpensive restaurants did well. By 1974 three chains – McDonalds, Colonel Sanders, and Burger King — were furnishing 13% of all food eaten outside the home nationwide. Five years later there were 66,000 franchise outlets in the U.S., nearly double the number in 1973. Elsewhere, doggie bags soared in popularity and some customers began packing away anything edible on the table. A few restaurants went so far as to remove tops from ketchup bottles to discourage patrons from carting off their ketchup. [above: 1970s fast food streetscape]

Printing houses could barely keep up reprinting menus as prices went up, up, up. And still the restaurant industry experienced heavy, some said “booming,” business – even though patrons were eating more hamburgers than steaks. Analysts thought it was due to the number of working wives, along with the fact that the hike in supermarket prices outdid restaurant price increases. The president of the National Restaurant Association reported that the country’s half million restaurants enjoyed rising sales throughout the mid-1970s, with 1975’s take 16% higher than the year before. Nonetheless the industry fought a proposed increase in the federal minimum wage from $2.30 to $3.00 an hour.

Despite continuing challenges, the economy began to improve in 1982, ushering in a period of gastronomic innovation in restaurants.

© Jan Whitaker, 2022

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November 24, 2022 · 11:33 am

Thanks so much!

Recently I was looking over some of the comments my readers have left over the years and I realized that saying thanks is way overdue.

I’m flattered and pleased that my readers and followers are so kind – and so smart! They have sent praise, suggested new topics, asked good questions, and gently corrected me. They have added to my understanding of many of the places, people, and situations I’ve written about. Some have loaned me images or mailed me books, menus, even restaurant china on a few occasions. Others have shared my posts, bringing me more readers. The number of rude or ugly comments I’ve received is minuscule, probably less than 1 in 1000.

I am grateful.

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November 13, 2022 · 11:52 am

Digesting the Madonna Inn

The Madonna Inn complex in San Luis Obispo CA, including a fantasyland motel, wedding venue, shops, and restaurants, represents the genius and determination of a rugged male individual – assisted by his wife — conquering all obstacles to build a dream.

Alex Madonna had been planning his project from 1953 if not earlier. The motel opened in the full sense of the word in early 1959, but it was not until a couple of years later that the complex was furnished with eating facilities.

Although all along it has had plenty of overnighters, honeymooners, lunch and dinner patrons, banqueters, and gawkers who love it, the place has also had detractors. Among their assessments: “a fantasy run amok,” “the epitome of lousy taste,” and “a crazy, outrageous Hansel-and-Gretel complex.”

Madonna Inn lore credits its unorthodox design to Alex and Phyllis Madonna’s untutored creativity. Alex, according to legend, speedily dismissed the architects he initially consulted. Yet, up until the end of 1958 Madonna worked with plans developed by Beverly Hills architect Louis Gould, a former Hollywood film set designer. And as late as 1966 an advertisement for an apartment complex Gould designed credited him with other “outstanding landmarks . . . including the famed Madonna Inn.” To the extent that the Inn’s exterior achieved any coherence, it may be due to his early influence.

Yet there was a point where no professionals guided the design, as revealed especially in the striking – to me jarring – use of large stones and boulders. The two most celebrated rooms – a men’s public bathroom with a urinal flushed by a waterfall and the Caveman Room [shown above] – prominently feature these materials.

Throughout the interior, the combination of stones and boulders with bright primary colors, artificial flowers and vines, gilded cupids, figured textiles, and plush carpeting is disturbing. The Inn’s eating places exemplify the common observation that many American restaurants are more about decor than food. This was especially true of the primary dining room, the Gold Rush Room [shown below]. Its jangling decor, superficially suggesting luxury but not allowing the eye to rest, is out of keeping with fine dining where food is the star.

A Los Angeles Times reviewer said he lost his appetite in the Gold Rush Room after viewing the giant tree with “fat, glossy, grinning cherubs, spray-painted gold and swimming in Pepto-Bismol.” Alex Madonna responded with a letter defending the room’s centerpiece. The 25-foot tall tree, he pointed out, had been “hand-crafted” on the spot out of “electrical conduit and copper remnants left over from building projects.” The pink, he wrote, was inspired by a visit to Hawaii where it was used lavishly in hotels and restaurants. At one point, even the Inn’s bread and sugar were pink.

The images of the Madonna Inn shown here are difficult to date, but most are probably from the 1960s and 1970s. Everything was subject to change and frequently overhauled. As a 1973 story in the Los Angeles Times observed, Alex Madonna perpetually thought up new ideas, one being an indoor lake featuring a floating cocktail bar that patrons would reach by canoe. The room would have been furnished with a snowflake machine and a three-story fireplace that burned entire trees. That dream did not materialize, nor did the plan to build another motel complex atop the San Luis Mountain behind the Inn that he bought from the city of San Luis Obispo in1972.

The Inn’s basement Wine Bar below the Gold Rush Room featured boulders incongruously festooned with vines and blooming flowers, a beamed ceiling, and chairs fashioned from barrels. If the wine list was anything like the coffee shop’s, it too would have specialized in Lancers and Paul Masson selections such as Rosé and Sparkling Burgundy, along with Port and Sherry aperitifs.

Lunch and supper specials on a ca. 1960s coffee shop menu were also uninspired. They included low-calorie choices such as Ground Beef Patty with Cottage Cheese, and entrees like Top Sirloin Steak with Cottage Cheese and Peaches. “Chilled” Tomato Juice as an appetizer.

The 1960s and 1970s were not distinguished decades gastronomically, and in that sense the Inn was typical. Patrons might be thrilled with the oversized pastries available in the coffee shop, but otherwise the fare did not receive many comments. A few observed that it was nothing special and overpriced. Recent photos taken by guests are not flattering, though it’s only fair to admit that they may reflect Covid-era staffing issues.

The Inn was hailed in the 1970s by fans of vernacular roadside architecture, such as John Margolies, as well as some influential writers and scholars. Not only did Margolies declare the Inn’s meals “delicious,” he considered the complex “a labor of love” designed to make people happy” and “a place where things that don’t go together go together.”

Hmm. I’d say that in the Gold Rush Room’s Christmas scene, among others, things could never go together.

© Jan Whitaker, 2022

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October 30, 2022 · 10:42 am

Halloween soup

Although the food-page story in a New Orleans newspaper said that this photo showed a jack-o-lantern just carved by Chef Gunter Preuss for his children, I can’t help feeling a little bit spooked by it. Is it how he’s holding that knife, or his serious gaze?

Never mind, because the story was about the Harvest Cream Soup he makes out of the pumpkin’s insides. (See recipe below.)

At the time of this story, 1976, Gunter Preuss and his wife Evelyn were owner-operators of the Versailles Restaurant in New Orleans. Eight years later they acquired a part interest in Broussard’s, which they took over from 1993 to 2013.

The Versailles received a glowing review in Richard Collin’s “Underground Gourmet” column in 1978 — although it was definitely not a restaurant for the price-conscious diner. Collin declared it “spectacular,”and “about as fine a restaurant as one can imagine.” He singled out many dishes as “platonic,” meaning they could not be more perfect. Among them were Bouilabaisse Marseillaise, Rack of Lamb Persillades, Ris de Veau Grenobloise, and Pears Cardinal. Chef Preuss was also featured on the show Great Chefs of New Orleans.

The recipe for pumpkin soup does not give amounts for every ingredient. It calls for a pumpkin’s interior, seeds removed, to be cubed and washed. Then sauté the cubes with onions and celery until glazed. Add flour and a half quart of chicken stock. Simmer the mixture over medium heat for 45 to 60 minutes, seasoning with salt, white pepper, powdered ginger, and white wine. Then strain the soup and add three eggs yolks and a cup of light cream. Simmer on low flame for five minutes, then pour into cups and serve with a whipped cream topping and a touch of ginger. Serves six.

Enjoy Halloween!

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