July 1, 1949 – Kramer's Grill Ad

The above ad for Kramer's Grill in Lorain appeared in the Lorain Journal on July 1, 1949 – 64 years ago today.

I really don't know anything about Kramer's Grill, or its proprietors Milt and Joe. The 343 Broadway address is long-gone and now part of the parking lot of the crumbling Broadway Building.

Courtesy Wikipedia

But I just thought the ad was interesting because of the whole television promotional angle. The ad states, "See the Cleveland Indians play, see boxing and wrestling and many other interesting programs on our large DuMont Television Set with the largest tube made!"

I wonder if they let kids in the bar to watch TV?

In 1949 television was still relatively new. (The DuMont Television Network had only been on the air in the U. S. since 1946.) Most people could not afford a TV set, so they did most of their watching in bars.

Just for fun, here's a live, 1949 TV commercial for DuMont Television Sets courtesy of YouTube. The commercial is from an early DuMont TV series called "School House" featuring Wally Cox (later known as the voice of the animated hero Underdog) as a student and Kenny Delmar as the professor. (Kenny Delmar was best known as Senator Claghorn on the radio and later the voice of several cartoon characters himself, including the Hunter on the King Leonardo show.)