Old Department Store Restaurants

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Jeff
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Post by Jeff »

When did Broadway close its restaurants. I dont remember them open, but Puente Hills had one lower level by the Sears side enterance, the Broadway Riverside Tyler had it lower level by the Parking Structure entry, and the Plaza Pasadena Broadway had it on the third level. I remember that Puente Hill's was just closed, the doors locked most of the time. One day I had to use the restroom and their main mens room was closed, so they sent me into the old closed restaurant to use it. It still had chairs and tables.

Riverside was the same way, same layout as Puente Hills.

Plaza Pasadena walled off the restaurant that was located next to the restrooms. It was there when they were made a clearance center for Macys. It was just walled off. I beleive this one was gutted for more upstairs retail when Macys made this a full line store instead of a clearance store
VibeGuy
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Post by VibeGuy »

In the Northwest:

Most larger Nordstrom stores have at least one restaurant and an espresso bar. Seattle Downtown and Bellevue Square both have two restaurants - a Cafe and a "Men's Grill" sort of concept. I've been a fan of their clam chowder for (eep!) thirty years. The parentals could convince me not to squirm when getting new shoes in exchange for a bowl of chowder.

Many Meier and Frank stores had restaurants. Downtown Portland had a tearoom and a men's grill/carvery into the (early 80's), with the tearoom surviving until quite recently. Salem and Eugene both had restaurants as well; Eugene's was on the second floor, off the "rotunda", and I believe was called the Rotunda Room. Attending university in Salem, I used to use my M&F card for lunch when cash was short and campus dining wasn't turning my crank.

Frederick & Nelson had restaurants in at least some suburban locations - the Everett Mall comes to mind. I *believe* it was marketed as the Frango Cafe. I remember the decor as being stark black and white with red accents - very chic for 1983.

Lipman-Wolfe in Portland had restaurants downtown (tearoom and grill) - the space survives as a hotel with a lovely roasted-meats-and-bar place on the corner.

E
justin karimzad
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Post by justin karimzad »

The downtown San Francisco Emporium had at least one restaurant, on a mezzanine. It might have had one in the basement for a time too. The Emporium in Mountain View, CA had a Lyon's restaurant on the 2nd floor. I believe Capwell's in Walnut Creek, CA had some kind of a lunch counter, and maybe Hayward, CA too. I know the downtown Oakland Capwell's had a top level restaurant, at least decades ago.
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Dave
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Post by Dave »

The downtown Richmond Miller & Rhoads Tea Room was on the fifth floor, and one of the store elevators was a dedicated "Tea Room Express" - that elevator was manual and had it's own operator until the store closed.

To me, that's an intersting subject in and of itself - manually operated elevators with elevator operators - not just someone pushing buttons on an automatic elevator. I can think of at least three other buildings in downtown Richmond besides Miller & Rhoads that had manually operated elevators well into the 1990's.
Dean
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Post by Dean »

Jeff wrote:When did Broadway close its restaurants. I dont remember them open, but Puente Hills had one lower level by the Sears side. I remember that Puente Hill's was just closed, the doors locked most of the time. One day I had to use the restroom and their main mens room was closed, so they sent me into the old closed restaurant to use it. It still had chairs and tables.
How funny...those are the only memories I have as well...it being closed.

Sincerely...I used that bathroom as well!
dooneyt63
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Jordan Marsh CP Orlando restaurant location

Post by dooneyt63 »

IIRC, the dining room was on the third floor. Colonial Plaza had many old but interesting places. In addition to the aforementioned Ronnie's and Jordan Marsh dining room, there were a Harvest House coffee shop in Woolworth's as well as a snack bar opening onto the "mall" walkway. The entire store went in a Woolworth's closing spree a couple of years prior to the final closure in 1997.
lvkewlkid
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Post by lvkewlkid »

VibeGuy wrote:In the Northwest:

Most larger Nordstrom stores have at least one restaurant and an espresso bar. Seattle Downtown and Bellevue Square both have two restaurants - a Cafe and a "Men's Grill" sort of concept. I've been a fan of their clam chowder for (eep!) thirty years. The parentals could convince me not to squirm when getting new shoes in exchange for a bowl of chowder.

Many Meier and Frank stores had restaurants. Downtown Portland had a tearoom and a men's grill/carvery into the (early 80's), with the tearoom surviving until quite recently. Salem and Eugene both had restaurants as well; Eugene's was on the second floor, off the "rotunda", and I believe was called the Rotunda Room. Attending university in Salem, I used to use my M&F card for lunch when cash was short and campus dining wasn't turning my crank.

Frederick & Nelson had restaurants in at least some suburban locations - the Everett Mall comes to mind. I *believe* it was marketed as the Frango Cafe. I remember the decor as being stark black and white with red accents - very chic for 1983.

Lipman-Wolfe in Portland had restaurants downtown (tearoom and grill) - the space survives as a hotel with a lovely roasted-meats-and-bar place on the corner.

E
The Nordstrom here in Vegas I believe has 3 restaurants, including an expresso bar.

Neiman Marcus also has a restaurant, maybe even 2, I don't remember.
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buckhead
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Re: Jordan Marsh CP Orlando restaurant location

Post by buckhead »

dooneyt63 wrote:IIRC, the dining room was on the third floor. Colonial Plaza had many old but interesting places. In addition to the aforementioned Ronnie's and Jordan Marsh dining room, there were a Harvest House coffee shop in Woolworth's as well as a snack bar opening onto the "mall" walkway. The entire store went in a Woolworth's closing spree a couple of years prior to the final closure in 1997.
Thank you for refreshing my memory. Now I DO seem to recall the Jordan Marsh restaurant...and the snack back that opened onto the mall walkway (I believe off to the side where one would enter if coming from the free-standing AAA office). I vaguely remember that their selection board had Borden logos on it! Anyway, that whole mall was sort of a trip into the past in many ways...the chandeliers had a date flavor, and of course Ronnie's still looked like it was straight from the 50's. They were not playing on nostalgia, instead they were just to cheap to update the place. But the Jordan Marsh store itself, for a suburban store dating only from the 50's was like a dowager empress...it had that feel and smell...a sort of glorious decay. It always intrigued me to go in there. I managed always to get some free Godiva samples or other candy. I regret never having ventured into the restaurant. I would hope that my experience would have been as memorable as yours.
Harvas

Post by Harvas »

Bloomingdales in Tysons Corner had an Eatcetera cafe on the main floor, located in their gourmet-foods department (which had its own entrance) where the Estee Lauder Spa is now, and a Forty Carrots restaurant (which I never saw, so I don't know where in the store it was.) Woodward & Lothrop had the Williamsburg Restaurant on the top floor, and I believe Hechts had something also, although I forget the name.

Woodies' flagship store in DC also had a Williamsburg Restaurant.
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Restaurants

Post by J-Man »

I believe Capwell's in Walnut Creek, CA had some kind of a lunch counter
The Walnut Creek Capwell's had a cafeteria called Compton's. I believe it was part of a chain, but I don't know of any other locations.

I recall going to the Bullock's Wilshire (flagship store) Tea Room in the mid-'70s-- lots of older ladies having "liquid lunches."

Woodies in downtown DC had a sit-down, full service restaurant on the seventh floor.

Weinstocks had restaurants called "Harris and David's" in both their newer Downtown Plaza and Country Club Plaza stores after they closed their two large downtown (9th and K and 12th and K) stores in Sacramento.

Macy's in Sacramento Downtown Plaza (which was a freestanding store before the mall was built) currently has the only California branch of Cosi.

Macy's in downtown SF used to have a branch of Mama's, but now they have (in addition to the quick serve establishments in "The Cellar") a branch of the Cheesecake Factory. I believe that I. Magnin, next door, used to have a branch of Blum's, and The White House (a long gone downtown SF department store) had the Raphael Weill Room. City of Paris (where Neiman-Marcus is now) also had a restaurant.
jimbobga
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Post by jimbobga »

The restaurant at the Jordan Marsh store in Colonial Plaza in Orlando was located on the fourth floor. It was the only restaurant other than Ronnie's in the entire shopping center, and was also located about as far away from any sort of traffic that one could get. The fourth floor of JM at that time was not a "women's floor," but rather one with records, sporting goods, and other types of departments. The restaurant had a name like "The Biscayne Room" or something like that, since JM was a South Florida branch of the chain that only came to Central Florida around 1961.
jimbobga
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Post by jimbobga »

Two other department-store restaurants come to mind:

Levy's of Savannah, a one-store Allied Stores unit, had a restaurant on the main floor of their downtown store. It was called "The Azalea Room," and remained unchanged even after Maas Brothers took over the chain. The restaurant even remained open a couple of months after the store closed in 1992 because of its popularity and convenient location right on the main shopping street.

The wonderful art-deco Tapp's Department Store in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, had a full-service restaurant until the store closed sometime after 1993. The restaurant was on the basement level with linens and housewares. While one could get a reasonably good T-bone steak dinner for $4.95 [in 1992], and lots of sandwiches, there were no hamburgers on the menu....only a sandwich called a "hamwich" which was, as it said, a Ham burger, of all things. Yes, you could get fries with that.

As for Atlanta, Rich's Magnolia Room lives on in the memories of many people who still long for their chicken salad and coconut cake. Recipes for these items appear in the newspaper at least twice a year.
tkaye
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Post by tkaye »

VibeGuy wrote:Most larger Nordstrom stores have at least one restaurant and an espresso bar. Seattle Downtown and Bellevue Square both have two restaurants - a Cafe and a "Men's Grill" sort of concept. I've been a fan of their clam chowder for (eep!) thirty years. The parentals could convince me not to squirm when getting new shoes in exchange for a bowl of chowder.
I believe all Nordstrom locations have a café.
VibeGuy wrote:Frederick & Nelson had restaurants in at least some suburban locations - the Everett Mall comes to mind. I *believe* it was marketed as the Frango Cafe. I remember the decor as being stark black and white with red accents - very chic for 1983.
They were still using a black-and-white interior up to the end with the last new F&N location at the Lakewood Mall in 1989. They used the name "Arcade Cafe" and it tied in with an adjacent kitchenware department. The restaurant survived the store's sale to Gottschalks when F&N folded and was in operation up until a couple years ago.

The Bon Marche was another Northwest department store with restaurants -- Downtown Seattle, Tacoma, Southcenter, and Northgate all had them. Here's a peek into the Cascade Room at the Tacoma Mall location. This area has been converted to offices, sadly. The Cascade Room was one of two restaurants in that store -- there was also a counter-service coffee shop called the Corner House.

This is the snack bar at the Downtown Seattle flagship. Going back in time a little farther to 1950, here's a menu from The Bon's Crystal Tea Room downtown.
dooneyt63
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Colonial Plaza (Orlando, FL) Food Service

Post by dooneyt63 »

In addition to Jordan Marsh and Ronnie's, there was definitely food service at Woolworth's. It was part of the original strip that morphed into the eventual mall. As I stated earlier (and Buckhead also recalled), it had both a semi-enclosed Harvest House Restaurant and a quick-service counter opening onto the mall walkway. Much of the equipment was shipped to the Pine Hills and Michigan Street stores when the Colonial Plaza location was closed in a round of closings around 1994 or 1995. The Winter Park Mall store shuttered around the same time. Business took me to the area frequently in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I went from one Woolworth to another for breakfast or lunch during each stay. Orlando was a very successful venue for the Woolworth chain; even the small stores there had luncheonettes.
VibeGuy
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Post by VibeGuy »

The Arcade Cafe. Of course. I can't imagine that color scheme having looked nearly so chic in 1989. This name comes from their subterranean Arcade level with food options at the downtown Seattle store.

Actually, at least one full-line Nordstrom store that I'm aware of doesn't have a Cafe - Salem Center.

It wasn't just Seattle-area Bon stores that had cafes - their downtown Eugene, OR location had one, as did their downtown Boise location. I don't think Karcher Mall did, and I can't quite think of any other suburban locations that did, either.

Eric
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