Diner Menus

[Coralee]

I've recently been reading about diners and how they came to be and I was just curious if anyone had pics or scans of a 40s or early 50s diner menu? I'm intersted in see what sort of food these places served.

 

[Nick Charles]

here are a couple

 

[FinalVestige79]

I really like that Woolworths...back in the days of the lunch counters...geeez was I born too late or what?

 

[Coralee]

Thanks Nick. They look great

 

[Dinerman]

Whereabouts in Nova Scotia are you?

 

[Coralee]

Whereabouts in Nova Scotia are you?

Cape Breton

 

[thunderw21]

 

[JennyLou]

Anyone know of old style diners around So. Cal?

 

[FinalVestige79]

Hmmm

Well, let me go through the old rolodex around where I was there used to be an Earls in Orange (if its still there is beyond me)

The Village Grill in Claremont

Dick Church's in Costa Mesa

Pops Cafe in Santa Ana

Harbor House in Sunset Beach and Dana Point

Shore House in Seal Beach

The Iron Skillet in Ontario on Euclid (I eat there weekly, best pancakes and the sandwiches are exceptional!)

Teds Place In Laguna Niguel

Benjies on Tustin and 17th in Santa Ana

Lido Diner in Newport Beach

Bun N Burger in Al Hambra

Diner on Main in Al Hambra

Raes in Santa Monica

Pie and Burger in Pasadena

lol long list...there are more out there just haven't found them.

 

[JennyLou]

Ha thanks, I'll have to check some of those out.

 

[FinalVestige79]

lol I am nothing if not thorough Lol. The Iron skillet it actually 3 blocks south of the granada so we usually walk down there for lunch. Their turkey is the best I've had!! And the pancakes...fluffy and i think 1 foot around!

 

[Widebrim]

Anyone know of old style diners around So. Cal?

Not all strictly diners, per se, but close enough:

Downtown L.A.:

Philippe's (Home of the French-Dip Sandwich)
Cole's (also claims to be the Home of the French-Dip Sandwich)
Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria (an L.A. icon)

Eagle Rock (N.E. Los Angeles):

The Bucket
Auntie Em's

 

[JimInSoCalif]

I remember back in the 1940s that some restaurants charged 25 cents for Western Beer and 35 cents for Eastern Beer. I suppose transportation was more expensive back then or maybe it was a status thing to drink beer brewed in the East. I was too young to drink so I don't know.

The nice scans of menus posted up thread sure are a reminder of the inflation we have had since that time. There were a number of things one could buy for a quarter including Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines. Mechanic's Illustrated was only 15 cents and most have been the first magazine to have road tests of automobiles in this country.

Many magazines thought that a lot of us would have flying cars long before now. After World Way ll optimism for many things was very high in this country.

Cheers, Jim.

 

[JimInSoCalif]

@Widebrim

Good list and I think you could probably add that restaurant downtown that has never closed - Hmm.. The Pantry I think it is.

 

[Andykev]

Ouch those prices

When you look at the menu prices above....and feel rotten about our inflation..just think that when those menu's were current, the minimum wage was very low. In 1974-76, I worked in a "mom and pop" grocery after school. I made a whopping $1.65 an hour, which was I believe minimum wage. I remember selling a 6-pack of Olympia beer for $1.29, a loaf of Wonder bread was about .75 cents, a pack of cigarettes was .37 cents, then .40, and then .50 cents when I quit to go to college. And you could go to a cafe and have a sandwich and a soda for $2.75.

Now, that $1.65 per hour went pretty far, or so it seemed. It is almost everything has multiplied by a factor of 10! And someone previously posted an "inflation calculator", which was an eye opener. But, still, I wonder if we'd all feel better if EVERYTHING was again priced like before, of course wages would be relative also.

Just seems that "million dollar" this, and "trillion dollar" that, or a car costing $25K that I remember used to be $3k....

Sorry, this was a bitfftopic:

 

[Widebrim]

@Widebrim

Good list and I think you could probably add that restaurant downtown that has never closed - Hmm.. The Pantry I think it is.

Yes, how could I forget the Pantry? But if you go for breakfast, be prepared for a l o n g line, no matter what day...

 

[Widebrim]

When you look at the menu prices above....and feel rotten about our inflation..just think that when those menu's were current, the minimum wage was very low. In 1974-76, I worked in a "mom and pop" grocery after school. I made a whopping $1.65 an hour, which was I believe minimum wage. I remember selling a 6-pack of Olympia beer for $1.29, a loaf of Wonder bread was about .75 cents, a pack of cigarettes was .37 cents, then .40, and then .50 cents when I quit to go to college.
Sorry, this was a bitfftopic:

Do you remember Brew 102? 99cents a six-pack! (This was the early 70s.) And yes, I can recall as a boy seeing cigarette machines with 35cent packs. Odd that I remember these, seeing that I neither smoke nor drink! Sorry for also being fftopic:

 

[JimInSoCalif]

If things were priced as they used to be, coins would have some usefulness again. I figure a pack of gum or a candy bar (I buy one a week) are about the cheapest things one can buy and they seem to average about 99 cents. I have read that it costs the Mint more than one cent to make a penny. It seems to me like we are not far from the time when we should move the decimal point over one place in our monetary system, although I don't expect that to happen.

I remember when cigarette machines took a quarter. The manufacturers probably made good profits modifying them as prices rose. I can't remember the last time I saw one of those machines. With California's ban on smoking in most public places and the current price of cigarettes being around five dollars a pack, I wonder if those machines still exist in this state.

 

[Viola]

Plenty of foods still cost less than 99 cents? Unless you're buying everything at the gas station, where you're hit with the fee for convenience.

If you go to a supermarket you can structure whole meals for under a dollar.

 

[JimInSoCalif]

The only thing I buy at the gas station is Gasoline. I used to buy oil there, but ten years ago I bought a car that does not leak oil. That also eliminated buying kitty liter much makes excellent floor sweep if anyone here does have an oil leaker.