- All
- 1910–1919
- 1940–1949
- 1950–1959
- 1960–1969
- 1970–1979
- 1980–1989
- 1990–1999
- 2000-2009
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Also in 1911
Carl A. Klube and his brother-in-law, Henry Klinger, open Klube’s Steak House at 156 East 23rd Street in New York City after they acquire the St. Blaise Hotel & Restaurant, an establishment known mostly as a brothel frequented by the likes of Diamond Jim Brady.
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November 14
Greek immigrants George and Jack Mangas open Mangas Cafeteria in Elwood, Indiana. When the United States enters World War II weeks later following the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the brothers will begin offering free meals to those who have donated blood, bought war bonds, or served overseas.
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Also in 1946
Jerry Bush and two partners, Sam Magin and Jack Langer, open Bush’s Steak House at 100 West Broadway Avenue in East St. Louis, Illinois.
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October 20
Lester B. Johantgen, the owner of a jewelry store in Minneapolis, opens Johantgen’s Country House in Medicine Lake, Minnesota.
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January 24
Venette Hullet and her husband, James, open the Southern Air in Springfield, Illinois, after buying the old Colby mansion at 3045 Clear Lake Avenue and converting it into a restaurant.
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November 5
Holger B. Nielsen, a native of Esbjerg, Denmark, opens the Selandia restaurant at 711 Elliott Avenue West in Seattle. Four years later sell the restaurant to Gunnar Hansen and Sigurd Jensen, two of his employees.
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August 11
Marguerite Johnson and her husband, Carl, open Johnson’s Jiffy Food Shop at 2321 Wallace Avenue in Lafayette, Indiana. Their novel “fast food” operation offers all kinds of prepared foods that customers can either take home, eat on the premises in a little coffee shop, or have served to their guests at a catered party or other such event.
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Also in 1950
With his six brothers as co-owners, Salvatore “Sam” Bilello opens Bilello’s Restaurant and Lounge on St. Mary Street in Thibodaux, Louisiana. The menu features Italian and French dishes at reasonable prices as well as such Cajun standbys as fried crawfish tails, crawfish étoufée, broiled oysters with bacon, and stuffed mirliton.
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April 17
Margaret Brown opens the Town Club restaurant in Florence, Alabama, on the ground floor of a 15-room Queen Anne mansion that she has filled with antiques and fine furnishings.
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May 8
The Swedish Diner opens one mile south of Salina, Kansas, on U.S. Highway 81, next to the Howard Johnson Motel (no relation to the famous national chain). It features a mural of a Swedish scene by Signe Larson, a well-known painter from nearby Lindsborg, which bills itself “Little Sweden USA,” and an every-Sunday smörgåsbord.
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Also in 1956
Frank “Doc” Bila and his wife, Ruth, open The Kettle Restaurant at 1776 West Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim, California. Within just a couple of years the restaurant will be billing itself as “Anaheim’s Landmark Devoted to Good Eating.”
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July 1
Sam Zakessian, who has purchased a block of prime waterfront property on the Bridgeway waterfront, opens Zack’s by the Bay in Sausalito, California,
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January 31
The Swedish Diner in Salina, Kansas, serves its last meal, a day-long, all-you-could-eat extravaganza that it bills as “A King’s Treat.” For $2.25 patrons get the smörgåsbord and all its Swedish standbys, from risgrynsgröt (rice porridge) and rag brod (rye bread) to köttbullar (meatballs) and lingonberry-topped ostkaka (cheesecake), as well as “many other choice foods.”
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January 15
A three-alarm fire destroys Neptune’s Corner, a popular seafood restaurant at the corner of 48th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City, as thousands of onlookers gather to watch firefighters battle the blaze, which quickly preads to the Fred Astaire Dance Studio on the second floor of the building and then breaks through the roof. The headline in the next day’s New York Daily News reads: ““Midtown Is Treated To a 3-Alarm Fish Fry.”
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January 1
Jim White opens Jim White’s Half Shell, a white-tablecloth seafood restaurant, in Atlanta’s Buckhead district.
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September 16
Anderson’s Restaurant in Beebe, Arkansas, is destroyed by fire. Two and a half months later Anderson’s insurer, Missouri-based Transit Casualty Company, is declared insolvent in what is called “the Titanic of all insolvencies,” and the restaurant never reopens.
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August 10
Strucel’s Supper Club, advertised from its opening in 1963 as “Milwaukee’s most exquisite restaurant and cocktail lounge,” closes.
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August 25
The Grand Ticino, one of New York City’s most venerable Italian restaurants and a Greenwich Village institution, closes after 82 years in business.
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December 31
Cafe Borgia, the second-oldest café in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, closes its doors after 42 years in operation.
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January 16
The long-vacant Log House restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, is demolished by the Gulf Coast Medical Center, which has acquired the property for some undesignated future use.