In the mid-19th century there was only one American restaurant with a worldwide reputation, Delmonico’s in New York City. A Tribune reporter wrote in the 1840s that Delmonico’s represented the sole example of an “expensive and aristocratic” restaurant which was “equal in every respect, in its appointments and attendance as well as the quality and execution of its dishes, to any similar establishment in Paris itself.”
Consequently the name Delmonico was worth gold. In the middle of the century it began to crop up everywhere.
The best known of the “other Delmonicos” was one in San Francisco. It came by its name honestly since it was established by Cyrus Delmonico, an Italian-Swiss relative of the New York Delmonicos. He opened his restaurant in 1850, selling it two years later to Giocondo Giannini (who, it must be noted, did not change the name to Giannini’s).
In 1850 Delmonico’s in San Francisco occupied the second floor of a frame house whose lower floor held a market selling beef, Sandwich Islands squashes, and $2 cabbages. The narrow room whose walls and ceiling were covered in white muslin held two rows of tables. Even though modest in appearance it was considered one of the best and most expensive eating places in a town where provisions were scarce and miners carried gold in their pockets. Breaded veal cutlets went for $1 and lobster salad was $2. With wine, a full meal could easily cost the princely sum of $5.
There continued to be a Delmonico’s in San Francisco into the 20th century though how much continuity it had with the 1850s establishment I don’t know. After the turn of the century it was classed with other eating places designated as “French restaurants” (meaningfully enclosed in quotation marks) or “so-called French restaurants,” which everyone knew meant that upstairs rooms were available for sexual liaisons. Delmonico’s, along with Marchand’s, the Poodle Dog, the Pup, and Tortoni’s, were the object of a shakedown by public officials who held up liquor licenses until protection money was paid.
What is interesting about most of the Delmonico restaurants that populated the West and other parts is that a proprietor could be of any nationality as could the fare. Many had cuisine that might be described as ethnically indeterminate, as is illustrated by a menu from San Diego’s turn-of-the-century Delmonico which features roast beef, roast pork, or roast mutton served with fried potatoes, bread & butter, and coffee, supplemented by baked beans, omelets, ham & eggs, oysters, and pie. Some of the other Delmonicos served French food and at least one furnished Chinese cuisine but probably most were Italian or gastronomically nondescript.
From the 1870s up to the 1930s, but not so much after that (except for New Orleans?), I’ve found Delmonicos in Los Angeles, Denver, Colorado Springs, Tombstone, Phoenix, Helena, Portland OR, El Paso, Dallas, Walla Walla, Mobile, Memphis, Winona MN, Leavenworth KS, Detroit, Key West (1931 ad pictured), Pittsburgh, Buffalo – and more. Proprietors names ranged from Gutekunst to Garibotti to McDougal.
© Jan Whitaker, 2009
In the summer of 1953 
The advertisement shown here appeared at just about the exact time JB was stepping off the ferry, in the June 22, 1953, edition of “This Week in Nantucket.”
In the 1890s it was considered daring to go to an Italian restaurant and eat spaghetti. The restaurants were not in affluent neighborhoods and some middle-class people worried (largely needlessly) about how clean they were. Non-drinkers didn’t approve of the “red ink” (wine) that came with the spaghetti. Some women felt it was not ladylike to eat spaghetti in public. Then there was the garlic, which was considered seriously foreign by many Americans. But others, especially offbeat types – artists, musicians, and free spirits known as “bohemians” — loved the whole experience: spaghetti, wine, garlic, low prices, and the friendly atmosphere found in most Italian places. The future of spaghetti belonged to them.
The bohemian fad for spaghetti grew stronger in the early 20th century, particularly in lower Manhattan and San Francisco. Diners flocked to Gonfarone’s in Greenwich Village. Despite its low prices, the restaurant made money because a 50-cent dinner with a complimentary glass of wine cost but pennies to put on the table – about 2 cents for the spaghetti and a few cents for a carafe of the red California claret bought by the barrel, 40 or 50 at a time.
Spaghetti, Italian and non, continued as a staple restaurant dish during successive decades, in speakeasies of the 1920s, Depression dives and diners, and a variety of restaurants during the meatless months of World War II. Next came pre-cooked meatballs and prepared sauces in the 1960s and 1970s which meant even virtually kitchenless restaurants could serve spaghetti. Its cheapness and the fact that children like it also made spaghetti a favorite of family restaurants, and the basis of chains such as the Old Spaghetti Factory, the original of which was started in Portland OR by a Greek immigrant in 1969.
Imagine a restaurant management style diametrically opposed to Gordon Ramsay’s (as he takes command in nightmarish kitchens on TV), and you might well be picturing how Mary Love ran her restaurant, The Maramor in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1941 Mary described to a home economics conference how she ran her kitchen. She avoided frying and stressed the nutritional properties of food, preparing fresh vegetables to retain flavor and vitamins. Each day her planning department presented the production manager with the day’s menus, while a weighing and measuring specialist prepared trays with complete ingredients for every dish. The trays were given to the cooks, along with detailed instructions for cooking. “This,” Mary said, “helps them to keep their poise and self-respect through the working day, and a cook with poise and self-respect has a better chance of turning out a good product.” (Gordon?)
In the early 1950s middle- and upper-income people in cities of 25,000 or more were surveyed about their restaurant habits. People with lesser incomes and those living in rural areas and small towns were excluded because they were considered to be infrequent restaurant patrons. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed reported eating a restaurant lunch or dinner, or both, four to seven times a week. About one-third of the respondents also volunteered complaints, some of which follow:
The nation has begun to grow westward though settlement is still mostly along the coast. Seven cities exceed 10,000 in population in 1810, rising to eight over the decade. In the largest city, NY (152,056 in 1820), commerce is on the rise, yet by mid-decade there are only eight hotels and five banks. Pigs run free in the streets. The defeat of Britain in the War of 1812-1815 does not cause an immediate end to British influence on public eateries, though there are a few French restorators. Beefsteaks are popular and oysters are served almost everywhere. Alcohol flows freely. Most eating places are also drinking places and boarding houses as well. Board can include lodging or not — some people pay a weekly or monthly fee simply for meals.
1815 On July 17 Hannah Julien, who has run Julien’s Restorator since the death of her husband Jean ten years earlier, informs the public that she will be serving a “fine green turtle” that day. – In Salem MA, John Remond, who is black and from the West Indies, also runs a restorator where he prepares soups, green turtles, cakes, wafers, French rolls, and other delicacies.
After passing up Bamboo Isle (“Strictly Kosher Turkey Sandwiches, Fifteen Cents”), he heads to what was probably Mother Goose. “Finally, in an eatery built in the shape of an old boot I was able to procure a satisfying meal of barbecued pork fritters and orangeade for seventy-five cents. Charming platinum-haired hostesses in red pajamas and peaked caps added a note of color to the scene, and a gypsy orchestra played Victor Herbert on musical saws.”
In a 1936 photo series called “Chamber of American Horrors” for which he wrote captions he describes Mother Goose as a place where “Inside, kiddies from six to sixty, most of whom are indistinguishable from each other, gnaw sizzling steaks and discuss their movie favorites.” Other eating places included in the Chamber were the Toed Inn (“tasty combinations of avocado and bacon, pimento and peanut butter”), the Laughing Pig Barbecue Pit (“Etched in red and blue neon lights against the velvety southern California night, it can be seen and avoided for miles.”), and the Pup (“The most ravenous appetite fades before this elaborate cheese dream.”).
If it weren’t for the steady number of souls searching the spheres for Nucleus Nuance, I’d hesitate to touch this subject. After all, it was a clubby hangout that I never experienced personally so I’m at risk of leaving out things that true-blue fans care about. On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be much written about the restaurant side of this jazz nightclub, so here goes.
In 1979 Nucleus acquired new partners, the Venieros, who introduced fine vintage California wines, hooked up the restaurant with the Garlic Festival, and expanded the premises. Evidently, though, it remained unbeautiful. According to the Los Angeles Times in 1976, the dining room was windowless and “The front door leads you down a long corridor that makes you think you’ve walked in the back door by mistake.” In 1988 it sounded pretty much the same. A review by Alan Richman describes the entrance as “a nightmare, a series of twists and turns along a gloomy cinder-block passageway,” adding that the uninviting exterior was “white cinder-block, the front door solid black, the overhead awning worn out.” (He liked the place once he got settled.)
A “faux” want-ad for a young clerk, allegedly placed by “Iscariot Grasp, 1 Brokers’ Alley,” was published in New York in 1849. It represents a humorous take on Puritanical notions of morality of that time. Evidently an upstanding young man then was supposed to confine his dining to home. If he wanted the clerk job he had to promise to reside with his parents and not to frequent “oyster-cellars, porter-houses, theatres, balls, ten-pin alleys, billiard rooms, sweat-boards [a dice game], raffles for poultry or game, restaurants, confectioners, steam-boats, Coney-Island, Rockaway or Saratoga.”
In the late 19th century owners of large popular-price restaurants began to look for ways to cut costs and eliminate waiters. The times were hospitable to mechanical solutions and in 1902 automatic restaurants opened in Philadelphia (pictured below) and New York. In both cities, a clever coin-operated set-up – and a name – were imported from 
The Automat in NYC was owned by James Harcombe, who in the 1890s had acquired Sutherland’s, one of the city’s old landmark restaurants located on Liberty Street. The Harcombe Restaurant Company’s Automat was at 830 Broadway, near Union Square. Reportedly costing more than $75,000 to install, it was a marvel of invention decorated with inlaid mirror, richly colored woods, and German proverbs. It served forth sandwiches and soups, dishes such as fish chowder and 
Undeterred by the first Automat’s fate, Horn & Hardart moved into New York in 1912, opening an Automat of their own manufacture at Broadway and 46th Street (pictured). It turned out that New Yorkers did indeed use slugs, especially in 1935 when 219,000 were inserted into H&H slots. But despite this, the automatic restaurant prospered, expanded, and became a New York institution. By 1918 there were nearly 50 Automats in the two major cities, and eventually a few in Boston. Horn & Hardart tried Automats in Chicago in the 1920s but they were a failure. On an inspection tour in Chicago, Joseph Horn noted problems such as weak coffee, “figs not right,” and “lem. meringue very bad.”
The Automats hit their peak in the mid-20th century. Slugs aside, the Depression years were better for business than the wealthier 1960s and 1970s when some units were converted to Burger Kings. In 1933 H&H hired Francis Bourdon, the French chef at the Sherry Netherland (fellow chefs called him “L’Escoffier des Automats”). In 1969 Philadelphia’s first Automat closed, being declared “a museum piece, inefficient and slow, in a computerized world.” That left two in Philadelphia and eight in NYC. The last New York Automat, at East 42nd and 3rd Ave, closed in 1991.
It's great to hear from readers and I take time to answer queries. I can't always find what you are looking for, but I do appreciate getting thank yous no matter what the outcome.
Restaurant-ing through history 