Vintage Tea Room Menus

From the Land of Tea

Tea Room Menus

In this installment of "From the Land of Tea," we take a look at a web page that was funded by my Patreon supporters.

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Vintage Tea Room Menus

This page hosts vintage Tea Room Menus. Some offer a free or paid tea leaf reading with every meal and some merely present as public tea rooms. They are listed on one page, alphabetically first by state and then by tea room name.

Some of these tea rooms may appear on more than one of the following sets of images:

• Vintage Tea Room Postcards: These are sorted by state or nation; one page per state or non-USA nation.
• Vintage Tea Room Menus: These are listed on one page, alphabetical first by state and then by tea room name
• Vintage Tea Room Business Cards and Advertisements: Listed on one page, alphabetically by state, town, and tea room name
• Vintage Tea Room Matchbook Covers: These are listed on one page, alphabetical first by state and then by tea room name

This page will be updated at intervals, with additional menus and more information about the proprietors of these tea rooms.

You can use the site's search function (at left, in the directory bar), to search for tea leaf reading and fortune telling tea cup pages.

USA Tea Room Menus

California Tea Room Menus

Buena Park

Knott's Berry Place Tea Room, Buena Park, California, menu front cover, 1937. This cover was used for Knott's Berry Place Tea Room menus well into World War Two. For more details on the most successful tea room in history, see the page on California Vintage Tea Room Postcards, where the history of Cordelia and Walter Knott, and the tea room that spawned the Knott's Berry Farm theme park is given in detail.

Los Angeles

Bullock's Department Store Tea Room, Los Angeles, California, menu front cover, 1943. Bullock's was an upscale Department Store in Los Angeles with a series of tea rooms, each different in theme and decor.

"The Old Vanity Fair Tea Room: Recipes Gathered From Far and Near" features foods served at the private tea room of the Women's Athletic Club, at 829 South Flower Street, Los Angles, California. It is copyright 1927 by Caro F. Chamberlain. The lavish printing and binding let us know that it is both a tea room menu cookbook and a fund-raising souvenir for the club. The black silhouette-style signpost on a cobbled street is printed on marbled tan boards, quarter-bound in indigo cloth with a blue printed silver label on the spine; the interior text is printed in navy blue ink. Women's clubs flourished from the end of the 19th until the mid 20th century. They provided a place for women to socialize among themselves and pursue interests such as political and philanthropic activities and participation in sports. The recipes are organized into chapters for Hors D'Oeuvres, Cocktails, Soups, Fish, Entrees, Sauces, Meats and Poultry, Conserves and Relishes, Vegetables, Salads, Salad Dressings, Breads, Desserts, Cakes, Pies, Sandwiches, and Confections. There are blank pages at the end of each chapter for adding recipes. I remember cataloguing this book while helping my mother, Liselotte Glozer, write her 1960 cookbook bibliography, "California in the Kitchen: An Essay Upon, and a Check List of, California Imprints in the Field of Gastronomy from 1870(?) - 1932." It is Glozer #226. I am happy to say that i still own a copy myself.

Georgia Tea Room Menus

Dawson

This breakfast menu for the Alamo Tea Room and Coffee Shop, 941 Britt Ave., Dawson, Georgia, Phone 74142, is undated, but in 1953 the Alamo ran ads in the Columbus [Georgia] Ledger newspaper announcing that they were "Open Daily (except Saturday) 6:15 a.m. to 8:30 p.m." and served "breakfast, lunch, and dinner." Compare this cheerful "Good Morning" rooster with the one on the cover of the 1938 breakfast menu of the Empire Tea Room at the Hotel New Yorker in New York City, New York.

Maryland Tea Room Menus

Emmitsburg

The Village Tea Room in Emmitsburg, Maryland offered a lovely assortment of light luncheon fare, including oyster sandwiches, chilled juices, fresh spinach, fresh asparagus, fancy salads, and home-made mashed potatoes or French fries. The back over of the menu reminded guests to "Take home a box of our delicious Home-Made Chocolates, Full Assortment, Always Fresh." The proprietor was Mrs. Edgar N. Rhodes. and every word on this menu, right down to the delicate typesetting, coveys her high level of attention to detail and her fine cookery. Thanks to my Patron, friend, and cousin Dr. Jeremy Weiss, who has enabled me to use the facilities at Ancestry.com, i was quickly able to learn that Mrs. Edgar N. Rhodes was named Sarah Mellor Rhodes (1885- 1980). At the taking of the 1930 Federal Census, her husband Edgar Nevin Rhodes (1878-1939) worked as a text book salesman for the World Book Company of Yonkers, New York, which might help explain this menu's excellent typography. Ten years earlier, at the time of the 1920 Federal Census, Edgar had been a self-employed farmer, which may partially explain the tea room's emphasis on fresh-grown and home-cooked vegetable dishes. Sarah's talent for business management was evident early in her life. In 1910, she was 24 years old, had completed two years of college, was unmarried, and was living in the home of her parents, Benjamin and Emma Mellor. The had both been born in England, and together they operated a plant nursery in Ellicott, Maryland, another reason that Sarah's tea room showcased fresh garden produce and healthful food. At that time she was working as a bookkeeper for a shoe store, which helped her build the knowledge-base for running the tea shop after she married Edgar. Edgar and Sarah had two sons. Edgar died in 1939 of heart disease, and Sarah remained a widow for the rest of her life, passing away in 1980, at the age of 95. Too bad we never got to eat her wonderful cooking.

Massachusetts Tea Room Menus

Boston

The story of Huyler's Tea Rooms and Candies actually began, and can be discovered in the entry for Huyler's Candy Shop in New York City, New York, but this particular Huyler's Tea Room menu, dated January 1, 1927, was published for the Tremont Street Huyler's in Boston, Massachusetts.

The interior of this January 1, 1927 Huyler's Tea Room menu identifies its specific location as 146 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts.

At the time of John S. Huyler's death death in 1910, he had 54 stores in his East Coast chain, each supplied by his 14 candy factories. The entire tea room and candy shop chain, along with the factories, was sold to the New Orleans banker Rudolph S. Hecht in 1926, and one year later, to the retail magnate David A. Schulte. Here, at the beginning of 1927, we see the number of Huyler's tea rooms and candy shops that Shulte controlled. I count 53 addresses, each of which had its own imprinted menus. The 508 Fifth Street shop in New York City, which was photographed in 1905 and appears in the New York State section of this page was still in operation in 1927.

West Yarmouth

Red Rose Tea Room menu card, undated -- but the telephone number, Hyannis 2142W, marks it as prior to World War Two. The Red Rose Tea Room was located on Englewood Beach at the foot of Berry Avenue in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The proprietors are Red and Rose Rosbrough, hence the name of the tea room -- Red Rose. Note the many seafood offerings, and the Italian dishes; many Italian fishermen settled along the East Coast.

Michigan Tea Room Menus

Bloomfield Hills

The Devon Gables Tea Room In Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, was a local institution, the kind of place where upper middle class families held birthday parties and graduation celebrations. This menu was internally dated June 28-29, 1958. There was also a Devon Hills in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A glass advertising ashtray for the Bloomfield Hills location can be found here and a private-labeled 1930s sugar cube for the Devon Gables Tea Room in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is here.

New York Tea Room Menus

New York City

Breakfast menu for the Empire Tea Room in the Hotel New Yorker in New York City, New York, dated October 4, 1938. Compare this cheerful "Good Morning" rooster with the one on the cover of the 1953 breakfast menu of the Alamo Tea Room and Coffee Shop in Dawson, Georgia.

Interior of the breakfast menu for the Empire Tea Room in the Hotel New Yorker in New York City, New York, dated October 4, 1938. "The Empire Tea Room is under the supervision of Mrs. E. M. Capps. Saccharine and Veg-O-Salt served upon request."

Tennessee Tea Room Menus

Cookeville

A single-sheet menu card from the 1990s for the Rose Cottage Tea Room at 232 Peachtree Avenue in Cookeville, Tennessee. The proprietor was Kate Scurlock, and carryout service was available.

Washington Tea Room Menus

Bellingham

Tea Room Cafe, Bellingham, Washington, menu cover, circa 1960-1965. Like many other family-owned Cantonese-style restaurants in the American West, The Tea Room Cafe offered "Chinese and American Food," a term that refers to a specific cuisine that mingles old traditional southern Chinese dishes like snow peas, bamboo shoots, and black mushrooms over rice with newer American-Chinese dishes like chop suey. Chinese restaurants in the West were often owned by families who had come to the United States as immigrants during the 19th century, working first in the gold fields, then in the building of railroads, and eventually settling into running restaurants, truck gardens, and garden nurseries. Such restaurants generally followed the paths of rail lines. Their interiors were typically decorated with glass-panelled "wind-chime" style ceiling lights, vases of silk flowers at the tables, and images of dragons and Taoist deities such as Guan Yu (sometimes called General Kun) or the Three Star Gods. One restaurant ware supplier, the F. S. Louie Company of Berkeley, California, kept most of these small establishments stocked with Cantonese style dinnerware, often decorated around the rim with the "Greek fret" pattern shown on this menu, and bearing the name of the restaurant, tea room, or tea garden, as well as its address and telephone number. The Tea Room Cafe of Bellingham, Washington, was in existence from 1960 to 1970 at the 206 West Holly Street address shown here; the old-style telephone exchange number, beginning with letters rather than numbers, places this menu within the earlier range of that time-frame. I am not certain what the Chinese ideograms are, but after consulting an online translation service, i am pretty sure that they are hand-written characters for 茶室 -- "Cháshì" or "Tea Room."

Europe Tea Room Menus

If the number of menus grows too great for one page, they will be broken out into individual state lists, as with the Vintage Tea Room Postcards.

catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
The Mystic Tea Room

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Special thanks to my dear husband and creative partner nagasiva yronwode for illustrations, scans, and clean-ups.

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See Also

• Tea Rooms
• Tea Room History
• Vintage Tea Room Postcards
• Dating Tea Room Postcards
• Vintage Tea Room Business Cards and Advertisements
• Vintage Tea Room Matchbook Covers
• Vintage Tea Room Menus