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Fifties Retro Restaurants
| Article
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19848 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1991 |
1,405 Words |
| Author
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Celeste McCall
Caleste McCall writes on food and restaurants for the
Washington Times. |
Fifties-style eateries dot the landscape from coast to coast. In San Francisco, restaurants like the upscale Fog City Diner hark back to themes popular in the heyday of the diner, as does the glittery Empire Diner in Manhattan. In Chicago, Ed Debevic's (the creation of showman/restaurateur Richard Melman) has become a Windy City mainstay, with spin-offs in six other cities. Some of these fifties-style eateries sport prices more attuned to the affluent eighties than to Happy Days, but others manage to keep their tariffs as down-home as their images.
Several fifties-style restaurants are featured at Walt Disney World, that 43-acre empire of imagination sprawled over central Florida. One of them, 50s Prime Time, is located in Walt Disney's MGM Studios. The décor whisks restaurant patrons back thirty years with kidney-shaped coffee tables, jukeboxes, and vintage television sets playing videos of I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners.
Waitresses sport the appropriate period garb and assume the requisite motherly roles. They approach adults and ask, "Have you washed your hands?" Forty-something diners ordering wine smile when asked if they are old enough to drink. And customers who leave their vegetables uneaten risk a gentle chiding. "Don't forget those vegetables, now. Eat everything on your plate." People love it.
Food is served on Fiesta-ware, and it suits the mood: alphabet soup, Dad's chili, Mom's meat loaf, chicken potpie, and an assortment of sundaes and milk shakes. One combination, invented on the spot we are told, is a peanut butter and jelly milk shake. In a concession to the nineties, meat loaf is made with veal rather than beef, providing a lighter touch. The chili mac is vegetarian and is served over angel hair pasta. Other modern accommodations include entrée salads and a selection of wines by the glass.
The 1950s mania extends beyond food and restaurants. The movie American Graffiti, the musical Grease, and TV's Happy Days all celebrate the era. Vintage tones enhance modern movies like Stand by Me, which took its name from an old hit of the same name, sung by Ben E. King. Another 1950s favorite, "Unchained Melody," first sung by Al Hibbler, figures in the recent hit movie Ghost.
"Since World War II, nostalgia has become media dominated," says Fred Davis, professor of sociology at the University of California at San Diego. "Before that, people tended to be nostalgic about private things such as streets, furniture, and food.
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