Food From the "Olden Days"

I was going to post about a birthday invitation I made up for Son back in '99. He was turning three. I had several pictures of him (at two) and I used them to kind of tell the story of the invitation. It's quite darling (to me). I opted not to. Paranoia 1 Cute 0.

So instead I will post about a restaurant which no longer exists. Talk about shifting gears, huh?

The place was called The Ediner, and it was a cafe and malt shop of the 1950s variety. The restaurant itself looked like the inside of a trolley car. A co-worker and I found it while searching for good places to eat near work and we frequented it for a couple of years. Then, we saw the announcment the restaurant was closing. People just didn't want to sit down and be waited on anymore. They wanted to get in, get out, and eat quickly. What a waste. That's what ruined pizza, too. There are hardly any cafes around anymore. Not real ones. It's all fast food and national or regional chains.

I remember feeling very bad when I saw the restaurant was closing. This was in the 1990s, when so much that was important to me was going away. I asked the waitress if I could keep a menu. She shrugged and said, "Why not? We won't need it anymore." So I took one.

Found it in The Archives yesterday.

It's a nice menu, in a plastic binder to keep the paper clean and free from tears. Looking at the prices I am left to wonder what the charges would be today. My favorite menu item was the Hot Beef Sandwich for $5.95. Tender slices of beef piled high served Ediner style with homemade mashed potatoes and scratch gravey. Not sure what "homemade mashed potatoes" meant. I very much doubt they were made "at home". Of course, I should have ordered Salad. Only I so love a good hot roast beef sandwich, and The Ediner had one of the best. I often had a Strawberry Malt to go with my meal. And an Old Fashioned Root Beer. This was IBC brand, which is all right. Beverages was where The Ediner let me down. They served Coke products. I much prefer Pepsi. (Although I will say I prefer Powerade to Gatorade.)

I used The Ediner Menu as a template for creating one for the restaurant Spouse and I considered opening. But with the departure from sit down restaurants to fast food we decided it wasn't worth it. My brother kept telling us we could make a lot of money in fast food. He didn't understand. Few people do, it seems. It's not about the money. It's never about the money. I want to enjoy what I'm doing. Fast food s*cks.

Still think about owning a restaurant - but in the "olden days", when a restaurant really was a restaurant, as opposed to a place where they cooked food. Cripes! You can get that at the deli department at most grocery stores. We sometimes buy rotisserie chicken in a box, kept hot under heat lamps. I miss the "olden days". I guess that makes me old.

Pity.