So why am I thinking about restaurants? And especially about restaurants that I ate at when I was growing up?

In the first place, we really did not eat out very often. At all. It was quite a special time when we did.

I think that the first real restaurant I ate at was The Green Parrot, which I remember being on Big Bend, maybe in Kirkwood or some place like that. Some neighborhood where I hardly ever went. The other place that I remember from those early days was Buckingham. It was on Manchester, not as far away as The Green Parrot, but again in a strange part of town for us. Buckingham specialized in fried chicken. I don’t know about the Green Parrot. I probably ordered a club sandwich. Fried chicken and club sandwiches were my go to foods at restaurants.

This was largely because I never ate hamburgers. Everyone I knew ate them all the time. But I just didn’t like the idea of ground beef. I think it had something to do with how my mother made hamburgers – my memory is that she put chopped onions in the hamburger meat. I certainly didn’t like chopped onions. I know no one else put chopped onions in their hamburger meat, but I was making sure I wouldn’t be played a fool. Years later, I asked my mother why she put chopped onions in her hamburger meat. She told me she never did such a thing. So who do you believe? (I also told my mother that the pie that she made that was my favorite was a cherry pie. She also told me that she never made cherry pies. Again, was she just playing me?)

Going back for a minute to the fried chicken. At some point, I stopped going to Buckingham’s, or maybe it went out of business. I don’t remember much about restaurant fried chicken after that. (After a great deal of research – ha! – I see that the Buckinghams sold the restaurant in 1962 and that it closed in 1968; Trixie Buckingham lived until the mid-1960s, until she was 103 years old) Until high school, when we discovered The Stoplight in East St. Louis. That was the best.

I really don’t remember much else about St. Louis restaurant eating until junior high school or high school. Then there were a few places I went to quite a bit. The Parkmoor and Medart’s, although I always thought Medart’s was overrated. Rinaldi’s for pizza in U. City. (Rinaldi’s opened in 1956 and closed, or rather moved, in 1969 – it served thin, square cut pizza. Best was it’s home made Italian sausage.) The Lotus Room for Chinese food. Schneithorsts. (Schneithorsts opened at Clayton and Lindburg in 1956. I now see, but did not know, that the family had, before that, operated Bevo Mill in South St. Louis and two restaurants that the St. Louis airport.) Garivelli’s on Debaliviere That’s about it. I was deprived.

But then there were the downtown lunch spots I ate it, while I worked in my father’s office during the summers. Miss Hulling’s Cafeteria, and Pope’s Cafeteria. The Brown Cow in the Mark Twain Hotel. And, most of all, the little hidden restaurant in my dad’s office building at 722 Chestnut St, that no one knew but me.

Not very exciting, I know. But I don’t think St. Louis had very many exciting restaurants. I know there were the Italian restaurants on The Hill, but I don’t remember them when I was young. And I remember when Nantucket Cove opened up in mid-town. What? A seafood restaurant in St. Louis? Amazing.

Were there other ethnic restaurants? Japanese? Indian? Even French? Not that I knew of. Of course, there were the delicatessens – Pretzels, L & E. More? But those were for Sunday carry out food, not for eating in.

That’s it for today. And I am no longer hungary.