delk wrote:Years later, while living in South Lakeview, I remember the outcry when the Woolworths on Lincoln and Belmont closed their counter. The neighberhood was not remotely as gentrified as it is now.

Across the street from that Woolworth's was Wieboldt's. They used to have a grocery store in addition to the department store and as you crossed the threshold from department store to grocery store there was a small counter that sold hot dogs and pop and I don't know what else because the only thing our mother would let us order was the hot dogs. I have no idea why unless that's all they sold? There was no place to sit so I imagine we munched while Mom shopped. The Woolworth's counter was heaven because directly behind it were the racks of comic books which we were allowed to read as we ate. The neighborhood may not have been gentrified but it sure was a fun place to grow up.

Weibolt's grocery store was sort of the Trader Joe's of today. As a matter of fact when I was a teenager (oh so many years ago) I worked in the S & H Claim store in the basement of Weibolts across from the grocery. Okay, who today even knows what S & H was? Walgreen's also had great fries, two or three girls would get together and have an order of fries and some cherry cokes!!

I believe I remember reading that Woolworth's was the largest restaurant chain in the country at one time.

I'll bite on the S&H. Was it where we went to cash in our green stamps?

Most assuredly it was were you went to cash in your green stamps. Many, many stamps pasted in books brought you (if you had licked enough stamps) some very nice items. Trust me the food at Wiebolt's tasted much better then the green stamps!!

I'm not quite sure whom to attribute this menu to.

This is a circa 1956 Woolworth's menu:

C2-- Outstanding! I'll have the banana split for 39 cents. I'd like to see other menus that LTH-er's have collected over the years. We could start a whole menu thread.

Barnew wrote:Weibolt's grocery store was sort of the Trader Joe's of today. As a matter of fact when I was a teenager (oh so many years ago) I worked in the S & H Claim store in the basement of Weibolts across from the grocery. Okay, who today even knows what S & H was? Walgreen's also had great fries, two or three girls would get together and have an order of fries and some cherry cokes!!

I know! I know! S & H stands for Sperry and Hutchinson. My first "real" job was working at Weiboldt's. We had to not only issue the stamps for each purchase but count the leftovers as well in the register drawer at the end of each week. When I worked at Weiboldt's, there was no grocery store. But, they had a great candy department on the first floor.

There was a Rexall drugstore on Ashland across from Weiboldt's that had a lunch counter in the rear of the store with wooden booths. There was also a drugstore on the northwest corner of Addison and Damen that had a counter in the front of the store.

Josephine wrote:C2-- Outstanding! I'll have the banana split for 39 cents. I'd like to see other menus that LTH-er's have collected over the years. We could start a whole menu thread.

Josephine,

One of the guys on the BBQ list collects menus. You can find a sampling here.

As a side note I have 12 lbs of fresh goose fat rendering on the stove. No more until next Christmas.

I'm glad this thread's showing new life. Over the holiday we visited with the s/o's grandmother and his 80 year old Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary got to talking about her days near Milwaukee and Western, how she'd take her daughters shopping up Milwaukee Ave always stopping at a certain lunch counter along the strip---something..."-icks...?" the name escapes me; similar to Goldblatt's. They wouldn't countenance shopping w/o a stop for sammies and cokes. Very chi-chi.

Aunt Mary's a firebrand, lithe, irascible; she broke the all male tradition at a Polish punch press in the burbs in the 60's.

Anyway...possibly something to add to Chicago's lunch counter kultur?