The Lobster, Oyster and Chop House - New York City

At the time this postcard was sent, you could get a lobster dinner at the Lobster, Oyster and Chop House for under $3. In fact, for $2.50 you could get the Special Continental Supper, which included clam chowder, deviled crab, a whole Maine lobster, french fries, cole slaw, and coffee. There was an amazing variety though, and you could instead order smelts ($1.50), bluefish (also $1.50), Finnan Haddie ($1.35), shad roe ($2.25), mackerel, scallops, swordfish etc. And if you weren't in the mood for fish, you could order prime rib, a roasted chicken, or veal cutlets among many other things.

I came upon a website that gives a very nice description and a short history of the restaurant. Here's what the website, created by Bill Bence, has to say about it:

The Lobster Palaces

After a movie at one of the downtown palaces Mimi Sheraton's affluent Brooklyn family sometimes went to The Lobster, Oyster and Chophouse, better known simply as The Lobster by its patrons, Sheraton's college boyfriend also took her there on dates in the mid-40s. It was located on West 45th Street near Times Square and had opened in 1919. Lobster houses had been a Times Square fixture for decades. Around the turn of the century they were posh hangouts, along with oyster bars, for the sporting crowd. The Lobster and its 1946 counterparts were more mid-market. Sheraton always ordered the lobster but she writes that her mother would order “strange” things like gray sole, broiled bluefish, steamed codfish or finnan haddie with an egg or cream sauce

In his 1930s guidebook Dining in New York, Rian James described The Lobster as “a low-ceilinged, rambling restaurant with the grace and courtliness of a one-arm cafeteria; with rushing, ribald waiters, who dash up and down between the long aisles of tables with squirming lobsters in their hands, who take your order in a restless, 'must be getting away' fashion, making the distance between the oyster bar, up front, and the kitchen in the rear, in pretty nearly nothing flat.” The walls were decorated with mounted lobsters and fish and cartoons from Harry Hershfield and Fay King. According to Rian, it also had the best seafood in the city at a reasonable prices, which drew mobs of suburban and outer borough theatergoers in such numbers that people waited on line on the sidewalk to get in. The many other lobster houses in the immediate vicinity based their business on the overflow.

The Lobster was among a number of establishments that were fined in February 1946 for charging customers more than the legal ceiling prices set by the OPA. The Lobster paid a much higher fine than the other restaurants cited. That summer it also was cited for unsanitary conditions. It stayed in business until 1972 when increased costs, declining patronage and a change in the neighborhood made it no longer profitable. It was a favorite lunch spot for the staff of The New Yorker and Richard Harris wrote a "Reporter At Large" piece in the December 30 issue about its closing. To him it was a "comfortably unattractive," bustling place with efficient waiters and the air of convivial private club where you could get simply prepared, fresh seafood at reasonable prices. The owners, who were really pissed at the unions as well as the city bureaucracy, told Harris that the unions used to block the employment of African-Americans from any but menial positions. They defied the unions to promote a Black employee to the oyster bar.

The back of the postcard seems a little odd, since it has a return address stamp from New York, but was postmarked in Astoria, Oregon...and there's no message.  It's not quite as strange though if you know that the recipient, Edwin Payne, was a postcard, stamp, and cover collector and a postal historian. Here's a plaque in his honor from The Salem Stamp Society.

Unter den Linden - Berlin

At the turn of the century, Unter den Linden was Berlin's most elegant street, with lots of sidewalk cafes, restaurants, and nightlife. I visited Unter Den Linden in East Berlin when the wall was still up and went to see an opera at the Staatsoper. The street seemed sad and desolate. Most of the Linden trees were cut down for firewood during World War II. New ones were planted in 1950, but the street has never really regained its stature.

Here we are at the corner of Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse. On the left-hand side of the card, you can see the famous Cafe Bauer, where the proprietors had 800 European daily newspapers available for patrons to peruse while they sipped coffee and ate delicious tortes with whipped cream. The Cafe Kranzler is shown front and center on the card. Here's a close-up of the detail at the entrance of the Cafe Kranzler.

Click on the link to see a picture of the same place in 1933. There is still a Cafe Kranzler in Berlin, but it's a newer incarnation in a totally different location.
Here's the back of the card.

Paddy's Clam House - New York City

Lunch for $1.29 sounds good to me. So does the 5-course lobster dinner. I would suggest that we meet there for lunch, but Paddy's has been closed for many years.

This is from New York City - Around the World in 80 Dinners, originally published in 1959. Paddy died in October 1964.

Paddy's Clam House, 215 W. 34th St., is one of the largest and oldest seafood establishments in New York. Paddy (Joseph Patrick) White opened his first clam house in the Bronx more than 60 years ago and moved to the present location 26 years ago. He is now 80 and engaged in writing a book to be titled Eat Fish, Live Longer.
Paddy, born in Philadelphia, learned his trade at the oyster bar of Delmonico's. He still maintains that Lorenzo Delmonico was the greatest restaurateur of all time. Paddy established a record 59 years ago for opening clams  100 in 3 minutes, 20 seconds and claims this record has never been beaten. Today, his West 34th St. restaurant serves 1,000 people daily; disposes of 5,000 lobsters, 50 bushels of shellfish and 1,700 pounds of fish per week. The restaurant features wooden-topped tables and makes no pretensions to elegant service or appointments. And, Paddy boasts, people stand in line for his $2.55 five-course lobster dinner on Sundays.
Paddy is an avid fight fan, has known all the champs, and used to travel around the country to catch all the big fights of the past half century.

7 Seas - Miami, Florida

Classic Florida and classic streamlined architecture with a nautical touch.

The Creamerie - New York City

O.K., I'm giving you 25 cents. What are you going to order at the Creamerie?
This is a little pocket menu from the Creamerie  Restaurant at 262 Bowery, New York City.
The pocket menu also includes an identification card on the back, with spaces for name, address, and birth date. Oh, and the birth date allows for any year that starts with 18__. There is also a space to record the number of the case on your watch and the number of the works. Did you know that watches were used for identification?  I didn't.

The other side of the card notes that the restaurant is open "at all hours." Does that mean it was open 24 hours?

Well, first I started thinking about all of the apple tarts and oyster sandwiches I could buy for a dollar. Finally,  I decided to distract myself from the magical concept of 100 cream puffs for $3.00 and find out more about 262 Bowery and its history.

I might have expected the history of any place on the Bowery to be colorful, but maybe not quite this colorful. The best resource ended up being the New York Times archives,  a fun ride on any day.  I found little that would tell me anything about the Creamerie or its proprietor, Frank Summer, but I did find that people from this address died often and in interesting ways.
Here are the highlights:

May 5th, 1869 - Plans were submitted for a five-story, "first class iron store" building at 262 and 264 Bowery. The lot size appeared to be 83' by 85' and was owned by William J. Gesner.

March 26, 1871 - The Chapel of St. Augustine, 262 Bowery, was crowded to capacity to witness the confirmation of forty individuals by Right Reverend Bishop Potter. The chapel appears to have remained there until at least 1890.

April, 1873 - L. Zellner, alias L. Cruz, who listed 262 Bowery as his address, was arrested for dealing in obscene articles.

1878 - Aetna Sewing Machines was located at this address.

August 12, 1884 - Joseph Gallagher, a 19-year-old waiter who lived at 262 Bowery was arrested for stealing watches and other articles of value from doctors at St. Vincents' Hospital. He was caught going through one of the corridors in the hospital in his bare feet. Gallagher had previously worked at the hospital.

March 13, 1888 - 60 year-old Andrew Jauch, who lived at 262 Bowery (Schirmer's Lodging House), committed suicide on this date by ingesting Paris green.


June, 1888 - A Tailor by the name of Bernhard Marks was attached by L. Schwarz & Co. . Marks had recently bought the business from Louis Corn and then had his name changed from Gambitsky to Marks. Bernhard Marks was one of four tailors who had failed within a few weeks.

July 29, 1888 - Edward Cook of 262 Bowery was in a boat with Patrick Byrn and Byrn's two children when the boat capsized.  The adults, who could not swim, were rescued by a  row boat, but the children's bodies were not immediately recovered.

1890 - Moses Rephael had a crockery business at this address.

June 13, 1890 - John H. Waite was taken from Schirmer's Lodging House at 262 Bowery to Bellevue Hospital where he died in the pavilion for the insane ten hours later. Doctors said that he died of starvation and acute melancholia. They believed that he killed himself by abstaining from food either because he thought he was mistreated by his wife or because he thought all nourishment was poison. They tried to administer whiskey and milk when he was admitted to the hospital, but he spit it out.

June 20th, 1897 - Frederick Konig, 21, died at 262 Bowery.
August 2, 1897 - Max Berninghoff, 68, died at 262 Bowery.
May 18th, 1902 - John O'Brien, 62, died at 262 Bowery.
August 6, 1910 - Frank Schultz of 262 Bowery was arrested in Hackensack, New Jersey, leaving the house of Frederick van Saun with a suitcase full of loot.

May 22, 1915 - Karl Schmidt, an indigent resident of 262 Bowery, died in Bellevue Hospital. Once it became known that he was actually rich, relatives appeared out of nowhere to claim an inheritance. Apparently Schmidt always left the house at about 8 and returned at 6, but no one ever knew where he spent that time.

The building that currently stands at 262 Bowery was built in 1920 and houses a restaurant supply business.

Breakfast at the Frost Diner

Don't miss breakfast; it's the most important meal of the day. Just ask this Marlon Brando look-alike who's sitting down for his most important meal at the Frost Diner in Warrenton, Virginia. The diner was built in 1955, and is still serving up classic diner fare, though not at 1955 prices. This is one of those great old diners with lots of shiny stainless steel. In this early card, the diner appears to be all by itself on the side of the road; other buildings have since sprouted up around it.

Here's a recent picture taken by Michelle A. of her breakfast at the Frost Diner:

If this makes you hungry for more breakfast, head on over to the Theme Thursday cafe, where breakfast is served all day.

Gary's Duck Inn

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I love how this Jumbo Shrimp platter seems to be coming in for a landing on the roof of Gary's Duck Inn. Sadly, the Jumbo Shrimp Platter is gone forever, since Gary's Duck Inn closed in 1994. Gary's first opened in Orlando, Florida in 1945 and was considered a landmark by many, attracting celebrities such as Dolly Parton and Bob Hope. During the 1970s and 80s, Gary's Duck Inn served an estimated 25,000 pounds of shrimp annually.

Juarez, Mexico - O'Brien's Riverside Cafe

Prohibition in the U.S. during the 1920's and 30's was a boon for the entertainment business south of the border. O'Brien's Riverside Cafe in Juarez was happy to serve alcohol to Americans willing to take the short trip across the river.