Monday, July 1, 2024

Restaurant Ads – July 1, 1966

Well, it's the first day of July. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Fifty-eight years ago today, this was the restaurant and night club page of the Journal on July 1, 1966. Of special note is the ad for the Grand Opening of Dog 'N Suds on North Ridge Road. 

As I've noted on several blog posts, the July 1, 1966 Grand Opening was actually the second coming of the drive-in. It originally opened without fanfare in 1963 but closed (and disappeared from the city directory) by 1965. Then it reopened (under new ownership) in July 1966.

That's why there always seems to be so much doggone confusion as to how long it's been open.

Dog 'N Suds maintains a very active internet presence on Facebook. It's the only Dog 'N Suds in Ohio, and one of 20 in the whole USA, so they are working harder than ever to continue their success.

Elsewhere on the page are many ads for restaurants, drive-ins, night clubs and other entertainment venues that have been featured on this blog over the years, including Sandy's, Chicken Delight, Dewey Road Inn, Heilman's Ranch House, Hanna House, Perkins Pancake House, Emerald Valley Nite Club, Mister S, and Cedar Point.

That Perkins Pancake House up on North Ridge Rd. near Route 57 was a regular Brady destination. They had a promotion for a while that awarded a free dinner to kids on their birthday. I don't remember how often we utilized that particular special, but I do know I ate a lot of pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream back then. 

I really enjoy restaurant & nightclub pages from old Journals, because they provide a pretty good snapshot of what people liked to eat and how they liked to be entertained at that time. We also see some general indicators of a changing society, such as how most nightclubs provided music for dancing up until the early 1970s. After that, the older generation that enjoyed dancing (like my parents) were in their 50s by then and stayed home more, and the kids' taste in rock music dominated.

9 comments:

-Alan D Hopewell said...

I noticed in the ads that the phone numbers still had the two letters prefixes; I'd always remembered the numbers switching over to seven digits while we were still at 1867 Elyria Avenue, where we lived until May of 1965.

Don Hilton said...

We had a Perkins a few miles up the main highway from us. A regular feature there was a Saturday "all you can eat" breakfast which was certainly a money-losing enterprise but allowed them to get rid of all the related food about to go bad.

Anyway... My dad and his brother were identical twins. I mean really identical twins. Like they took each other's classes in high skool identical.

One Saturday, they took we kids (5 of us, including cousins) to the Perkins.

Dad went in with us, we all sat down, and started eating. After Dad had his (considerable) fill, he got up and walked to the bathroom. My uncle, watching from the car, saw him go past the window which was his cue to come on into the place and sit with us kids while Dad exited to the car. I remember the amazement on the waitress's face as she brought plateful after plateful of food to this guy who wasn't all that big.

Of course, we kids thought it was the funniest thing ever. When we got home, mom and my aunt who were happy to have the morning away from us were not amused.

We still talk about it at family gatherins.

Mike M said...

That's hilarious Don! Not only "all you can eat" but one twin eats for free!

Anonymous said...

Looks like our ole' clip art pal loopy doop has made yet another appearance in the Executive Club ad. Boy did he get used in all sorts of ads all the way into the 90's. Todd

Buster said...

I see Cedar Point was advertising Jimmy Dorsey in the ballroom. A nice trick - he died in 1957. This was presumably a Dorsey "ghost" band.

Anonymous said...

Isn't it about time for Dog N Suds to close for the season?The way the owner runs the place it's only open for like 2-3 months out of the whole year.

Dan Brady said...

While I understand that Dog 'N Suds has had the same owner for decades, the day-to-day operation of it has been turned over to a crew that has done a wonderful job, with a staff of great carhops that are there year after year. The drive-in was open later last season and I suspect they will do the same this year, especially with all of the special events they have.

Todd, you are right about our little clip art guy, he was really busy in the 50s and 60s! Didn't know he had a name!

Alan, all the phone numbers did have seven digits just as you remembered, but perhaps the advertisers were just using the phone company's 2-letter exchange prefixes until they felt customers were accustomed to the extra numbers they had to dial.

Mike Kozlowski said...

...I remember every one of those names except the Coronado Steak House - would this have been in the same buildings as the Avon Lake Theatre and the Saddle Inn?

Anonymous said...

I loved going to Perkin’s. I’d get the silver dollar pancakes. They had those plastic placemats, moo cow creamers and the little jukeboxes at each table.