Chic Restaurants May Come and Go, but Old-Fashioned Tearooms Are Forever

Although traditional department store tearooms and restaurants are part of a dying breed, some of the best known continue to thrive.

Bullocks Wilshire on Wilshire Boulevard near MacArthur Park is an example of the enduring old guard, with its peach-and-green tearoom preserved much as it has been for decades. It is a daily gathering spot for Hancock Park matrons, hip suburbanites and, increasingly, business executives who find it a congenial place to entertain clients.

The tearoom opened in 1929 in the landmark Art Deco building and has served the likes of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard and Prince Andrew and his wife, the Duchess of York. Afternoon tea begins about 2:30, after the luncheon crowd clears out.

“It’s an integral part of the store,� said Michael O’Keefe, general manager. “If I change one thing on the menu, even how a lettuce leaf is placed, customers notice.� A few weeks ago when the store made some modest menu changes, it invited regulars to sample the new dishes and give their stamps of approval.

Terry Stanfill, who became a tearoom regular after moving to Los Angeles 24 years ago, used to hear about Bullocks Wilshire from two college friends in the East. “I have daydreams about the spinach salad with wontons,� Stanfill said at lunch one day recently.

Few Changes in Chicago

Suzanne Forgues, whose comfortable inheritance affords the luxury of leisurely shopping and dining, recalled coming to the tearoom as a child with her mother and her British nanny. Now she lunches at the tearoom at least three times a week, meeting friends and watching the informal modeling that the room offers from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.

At Marshall Field’s flagship store in Chicago’s Loop, the Walnut Room restaurant has been a drawing card for more than 80 years, serving thousands of diners each day. Old-timers would notice few differences from the old days, except for the style of furniture and, of course, the prices. Some waitresses have worked the room for 30 or 40 years.

“We literally have some of the specials on the menu that were there when we opened,� said Homer G. Sharp, the chain’s head of central display. Among the favorites are chicken pot pie and the Field’s Special sandwich, consisting of turkey and bacon on rye with lettuce, tomato and Thousand Island dressing, all stacked six inches high for $6.30.

27-Year Tradition

Chicagoan Jean Duberville first treated her son and daughter to a post-Thanksgiving meal at Field’s 27 years ago. Since then, the annual outing to the Walnut Room, with its 45-foot Christmas tree, has become a full-blown ritual that now embraces her grandchildren.

“The food is good, but you are not standing in line for the food,� Duberville said. “You’re standing in line because it’s something you do every year.�

Half a century ago, one couple started coming to the seventh-floor restaurant on the second Saturday after Thanksgiving. Later, some friends joined them. Now four generations of the two families--totaling 32--make the holiday pilgrimage each year from Texas, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kansas and Missouri to sit under the tree at Field’s.

The giant artificial Christmas tree is decked out with 5,000 ornaments made each year by art students hired to work from June till the tree is put up in early November. This year the tree is hung with ornaments in a musical theme, with bears and clowns playing instruments.

At Hess’s in the working class town of Allentown, Pa., the Patio restaurant is an institution that turns a profit on more than $2 million in food and beverage sales annually (out of total company revenue of $516 million). Over the three-day weekend after Thanksgiving, it served more than 4,000 customers, many of them children, whose food arrives on small tin stoves.

Form of Advertising

Since the restaurant opened in the 1950s, little has changed. Customers frequently wait in line for an hour or two, especially during the holidays. “We are noted for good quality and very large portions,� said Art LaBarre, director of food service. (The menu alone is nearly two feet tall.)

“The management feels that any money spent on that restaurant is well worthwhile,� he said. “It’s a form of advertising, which is tough to measure.�

Despite the trend toward chic, quick-service concepts in department stores, the traditional rooms will probably be around for a good long time. Duberville certainly expects her family to carry on the ritual. “When my 19-year-old granddaughter gets married,� she said, “if they still have that tree, she will take her children.�