I found this ad on microfilm by accident at the library on Wednesday night, so I quickly scanned it and cleaned it up a bit. It's a full-page ad that ran in the Friday, November 13, 1959 Lorain Journal, promoting the opening of the Arena Restaurant, located in the stylish building in the front of the skating rink (I've mentioned it before on this blog back here.)
One thing I've noticed after looking at a lot of old Journals on microfilm is that grand openings of restaurants and other businesses in Lorain back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s used to be something really special, almost always warranting a full page or at the very least a half page newspaper ad. (I'll bet the Morning Journal is nostalgic for those days!)
Giving something away – in this case, orchids – seemed to be a popular gimmick too.
The ad above is also typical in that it shows a photo of the person responsible for keeping their customers happy. That's the way it should be.
Along with the grand opening ad, there were always a bunch of other ads in the same edition congratulating the new business. These were usually taken out by some of the contractors and other well-wishers. Seeing all these ads together really created a lot of curiosity and interest for the new business. It also united the community a bit to pull for the success of the new endeavor.
Nowadays, new restaurants open with barely a peep in the newspaper – maybe a small ad at best. Is it that surprising that a lot of them fail?
No comments:
Post a Comment