Flame Restaurant Grand Opening – Jan. 9, 1969

Here’s an ad for an eatery that older Lorainites might remember: the Flame Restaurant. The cafeteria-style restaurant was holding its Grand Opening back in January 1969 – 50 years ago this month – when this ad appeared in the Journal on the ninth.

It looks like the Flame had a nice niche, as the “first and only area ‘cafeteria-style’ restaurant featuring broiled steaks.”

As I mentioned in this 2012 post, the Flame succeeded the Muth Cafeteria Restaurant at that Fourth and Broadway location.

Here’s the vintage photo of the Flame from that post.

I've mentioned that I was in there at least once, picking up a cup of coffee for Mr. Visci during one of our late 60s trumpet lesson sessions.

Anyway, cafeterias seem to have mostly gone away in the 2000s, except for their established presence in schools and hospitals. But there’s still a cafeteria-style restaurant in our area if you have a hankering to relive that experience of sliding a plastic tray down a line as you select your mealtime morsels: Cleveland’s Sokolowski's University Inn.

Click here to read a great article about it. It’s been a few years since I ate there (I combined it with a visit to the Christmas Story House nearby), but I do remember the great rice pudding. There was also a piano player providing dinner music.

Here’s the restaurant’s website.