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Related: About this forum10 Vintage Menus That Are a Feast for the Eyes, If Not the Stomach
The Chicago seafood restaurant J. H. Ireland Grill opened in 1906 and had a colorful client list. It attracted everyone from gangster John Dillinger (who preferred the grills frog legs) to lawyer Clarence Darrow, who went there to celebrate big wins. But the co-founders of Cool Culinaria, which finds and sells prints of vintage menus, remember it for a different reason: its menu design. As colorful as its past, the best-selling menu uses bright colors to convey the fresh and vibrant ingredients to be found inside.
Menus from across the country featured fantastical fare with an artistry that often goes unrecognized, according to Cool Culinaria co-founder Eugen Beer. Along with Charles Baum and Barbara McMahon, Beer works with both private collectors and public institutions including universities and libraries to license menus from the late 19th century through the 1970s. Beer is British, and McMahon Scottish, but he says, America, for whatever reason, has this vast collection of fantastic art that sits in boxes.
Their favorites are from a golden age of design and dining ranging from the 1930s to the 1960s.
You had this incredible explosion of restaurants in the 30s, 40s and 50s when the American economy, partly driven by the Second World War, was doing incredibly well. And you had the great highways, explains Beer. In Europe at the time, of course, we didnt have that. I grew up in the United Kingdom in the era of post-rationing and even in the 50s in England we still had rationing. But, he says, In America, you had a fantastic boom in independent restaurants and you had these buccaneering restauranteurs who, in order to give their establishments a sense of identity, invested money in the design of their menus and actually employed well-known artists or interesting designers to produce them.
Menus from across the country featured fantastical fare with an artistry that often goes unrecognized, according to Cool Culinaria co-founder Eugen Beer. Along with Charles Baum and Barbara McMahon, Beer works with both private collectors and public institutions including universities and libraries to license menus from the late 19th century through the 1970s. Beer is British, and McMahon Scottish, but he says, America, for whatever reason, has this vast collection of fantastic art that sits in boxes.
Their favorites are from a golden age of design and dining ranging from the 1930s to the 1960s.
You had this incredible explosion of restaurants in the 30s, 40s and 50s when the American economy, partly driven by the Second World War, was doing incredibly well. And you had the great highways, explains Beer. In Europe at the time, of course, we didnt have that. I grew up in the United Kingdom in the era of post-rationing and even in the 50s in England we still had rationing. But, he says, In America, you had a fantastic boom in independent restaurants and you had these buccaneering restauranteurs who, in order to give their establishments a sense of identity, invested money in the design of their menus and actually employed well-known artists or interesting designers to produce them.
from the smithsonian
i think the artwork is incredible
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10 Vintage Menus That Are a Feast for the Eyes, If Not the Stomach (Original Post)
fizzgig
Mar 2013
OP
MiddleFingerMom
(25,163 posts)1. Ohiosmith used to take a roach with him wherever he went.
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fizzgig
(24,146 posts)2. haha!
Callalily
(14,889 posts)3. The posters are fabulous!
Especially the Expresso Coffee House!
oneshooter
(8,614 posts)4. Wasen't ther a menue from the Titanic found recently?
I believe that it on the back of a picture.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/rare-titanic-menus_n_2199308.html
fizzgig
(24,146 posts)5. i hadn't heard about that
way cool