Sometimes when we made a “trip to town” in our ’55 Chev station wagon we’d eat at the counter of Woolworth’s and order from that very menu. They usually had a daily special, something like meat loaf or spaghetti. The store had a certain “smell” because of the large amount of cheap Japanese merchandise. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Ditto, Billy. I always got a burger and fries since we never had them at home. Hummm, crispy fries hot out of the fryer!
Gimme a beer, and keep ’em coming.
I’ll have the Ivanka sandwich…extra mayo
Are any seats available at the ‘Whites Only’ counter?
I didn’t get to sample Woolworth’s until I was around 16-17. Everything before that was the heavily chromed diner on the main drag.
Actually, I’m old enough to realize that menu’s not that old…Coke was a dime. When I was a kid, a hamburger was 15 cents and a Coke or a Hershey bar was a nickel.
But I worked, pretty hard as I recall it, for $2 a 10 hour day…that was the summer between the 5th and 6th grades.
If you adjust for inflation, prices haven’t changed much. What has changed is that all that inflation destroyed a lot of people’s savings and pushed all of us into ever higher taxes.
That’s why a mother that worked outside the home was a rarity when I was a kid; one that doesn’t is a rarity today…Mom has to work full time to pay the taxes on Dad’s income. Thanks, “progressives”
We had GC Murphy’s in this neck of the woods. I remember sitting at the lunch counter with Grandma. They had the best donuts with varied colored icings. Downstairs the pet department where we would dream of the critters we wanted to have as pets but folks said no.
A local diner still has the donut machine all the rest is gone.
Where was the Azalea mall?
Ah Woolworth’s!
My memory is that I was about 7 yo and was going through a girly girl phase and decided I wanted to carry a purse. We had lunch at the counter and I left my purse under my stool! OH noes!
I’ll have an egg salad sandwich and a vanilla milkshake.
Woolworth’s Rye Ridge had a fountain counter where your back was in the aisle. No tables, just spinning stools. The best grilled cheese and cherry cokes.
What? No Green River on the menu?
My departed grandmother worked the counter at Woolworth’s in Queens before they closed it down. My siblings and I loved visiting her at work. Good memories!
Give me a BLT and a cherry chocolate phosphate
anyone here remember phosphates? I give my soul to have one.
I’d kill for one of those banana splits!! I probably haven’t had one since high school. They just don’t make them like that anymore!
DH worked there when he was in 11th grade. Dishwasher. He hated it! Lol!
“Extra Rich Ice Cream Soda”. As opposed to the “We were broke when we left the WH soda”.
I remember this menu. When I was little, if I was “very good” while my mom did her shopping, we would go to the fountain at Woolworth’s and I could have an ice cream sundae. Later when I was a teenager, my first summer job was a cook for Woolworth’s but that store actually had a restaurant separate from the store instead of just the fountain counter. I cooked a lot of burgers and fries that summer, I think it was 1973.
Ladies, do any of you remember buying Evening in Paris perfume at the dime store?
Remember when they did the balloon promotion where you paid the amount on the little slip of paper (that was inside the balloon you chose and popped) for a banana split?
I’ll have the baked ham and cheese with a chocolate malt and a huge side of nostagia. I remember Evening in Paris, Zonga. 🙂
I remember eating there and thinking ‘ how could a sandwhich cost .50’
.30 is bad enough.
.50 in 65 was about $3.75 today
i stopped at woolworths on the way home from school. Sometimes had money for a coke. It always tasted better than the bottled cokes. and sometimes fries.
is a sweet memory.
I remember Evening in Paris, too … *sigh* …
Paris Jones
Paris Smith
Paris Johnson
Paris Graham
Paris Boehner
Paris Emanuel
Paris Hilton … oh, wait, that was Perez …
Zonga ………. when I was a kid, one xmass my father gave my mother a beautifully wrapped box.
When she removed the top, it was a display of everything ”EVENING IN PARIS” made…… I can remember the dark blue satin underneath all of the items. Powder, spray cologne, the perfume in the blue cut glass with the silk fringe tassel. My poor dad thought that was such a beautiful gift, and mother knew that the box cost over $100, she slipped it in into a dresser drawer where it remained for nearly 50 years until her recent death.
It wasn’t all increased taxes that put Mom in the work force. At one time, average Americans had few luxuries to pay for. Clothes were washed in a wringer washer (or even by scrub board) and dried on a clothesline. Cooling and heating were handled by electric fans and space heaters. Everybody had a radio, but only the well-to-do had a TV. Cooking was done at home with a stove, and food was simpler and cheaper; “fast food” was almost nonexistent, and “eating out” was a rare treat. If you had a car (some people didn’t, and rode the bus) you only had one, and it was paid off as soon as possible, to avoid being in debt. Credit cards were non-existent – if you couldn’t afford something, you either put the item on layaway or did without until you could save up enough money to pay cash.
NOW, everyone has to have a washer and dryer, central A/C and heat, a TV in every room, one or two microwaves, and at least one personal computer. Most households have more than one automobile. Fast food and dining out at least once a week are considered perfectly normal, as is massive credit card debt and the resulting interest charges. Most families can’t afford all these things on one person’s salary, of course, and that’s the REAL reason why Mom’s working and paying someone else to take care of the kiddies.
In my humble opinion, that is.
🙂
I’ll have one of everything and it will still be cheaper and taste better that a Ruth Chris steak…..
I hope she or someone else found a way to tell your Dad how much she appreciated his gift. Because she never used it, it’s possible he may not have ever known.
My maternal grandmother worked at a Woolworths in southern CA. I loved it when we would go visit her at lunch time. Great memories. Grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate shake for me!
Caroleigh – my mom was the same way. I’m still going through her things after she passed (my dad is still living and he has to go through it himself to approve getting rid of anything and he still doesn’t want to throw her “stuff” away regardless of value or condition). We would give her things over the years and she would always say they were too nice to use / wear. Now I’m finding all of it still in the original gift box.
We always knew she appreciated it …… maybe a little too much because she always wanted to save it for when she wasn’t working so it wouldn’t get dirty or ruined in some way. It’s bittersweet going through all of it because the “later” in “saving it for later never came”. I remember her saying that “Evening in Paris” was “high class” perfume when she was young.
That menu is pretty old. What’s the shelf life on that food? lol
Man, it’s been years since I’ve had a good chicken salad sandwich.
The Woolworths in Ottawa had their lunch bar in the basement. They used to serve a chocolate malted that was so thick it took awhile to eat. You’d end up using the straw as a sort of a spoon until it was soft enough to drink. Actually come to think of it I think Wendy’s stole the idea and called it a Frosty which is good but not as good as the old Woolworth’s.
Our Woolies had fish fry on Fridays. Real fish, not a pressed square, on a hoagie bun. In the summer they made fresh strawberry pie.
There was a craft department downstairs where you could buy stamped linens to embroider and fabric.
In the summers in NC I worked at the Roses’ Dime store lunch counter. Fried chicken, hush puppies, mashed, green beans and warm banana pudding on Saturday’s.
The place still had wooden floors and ceiling fans.
There was a candy counter where the store’s sole black employee reigned supreme. I remember buying bubblegum with horror movie trading cards, wax nips, candy cigarettes, bubble gum cigars, Bonomo Turkish Taffy and Black Cows.
The craft department and the all the Barbie’s were downstairs too.
I hate malls.
Yes! Thanks for the reminder. I once got a 1 cent banana split.
Yes and you can still get it along with other old fashioned favorite cosmetics at Vermont Country Store.
Awesome post!! This describes not only my parents but how hubby and I have lived our lives.
If you can’t pay off the credit card when it’s due, you can’t afford the purchase.
Car loan? Nope. Drive a car into the ground while saving $100 per month to pay for the next car. 12-16 years later, you have good cash to buy a decent car.
Latest, greatest? Nope. Our house is almost 22 years old and still has the same kitchen and bathrooms. And an unfinished basement. Realtors strike us down!!!
And guess what? I was a “stay at home mom” and made sure our kids were educated, supported and loved.
It was about the kids, not us.
Woolies used to sell ‘The Book of Life Savers’ around Christmas. Maybe 10 different rolls were in it. It was $5 and too much for my kiddie wallet. My mother would never get us one because she said it was too much sugar. Later we found she was buying them, hiding them in the closet and eating them herself. Sigh…
And, oh yes, loved the lunch counter at the Chamblee Plaza Woolworth’s when I was a kid. A treat! 🙂
I remember. It was a good America to live in. Woolworths was fun. I remember. And it makes me sad remembering.
It’s pretty hard to even find American food in Chamblee these days (or anyone that speaks English for that matter), much less the type served at the ol’ Woolworth’s.lunch counter.
The Rose’s and Woolworth (called “five and dime” as per the signs on the store front) in my hometown didn’t have a lunch counter, but the Rexall Drugs on the town square with them did.
Evening in Paris at amazon $30 and free shipping
Soir De Paris By Bourjois For Women. Eau De Parfum Spray 1.6 Oz.
Reminds me of the story about the woman who had a beautiful dress, but she kept putting off wearing it because the occasion wasn’t right, she didn’t want to get it messed up, etc., etc. This went on for years. Finally, at long last, she got to wear the dress. They buried her in it.
It’s kinda neat to see “Evening in Paris” gain some respectability again, because by the time I got to high school it had become somewhat of a joke. It was inexpensive at the time, and it was usually the only fragrance that schoolkids could afford to buy Mom for Mother’s Day and Christmas. As a result, most Moms’ dresser drawers were awash in the stuff. It was pretty much the epitome of el cheapo perfume, at least in the town where I grew up. I used to refer to it as “Midnight at McCrory’s” (McCrory’s was a local five and dime store, like Woolworths).
🙂
A prayer to your mothers memory Brother. Who says saints don’t walk among us?
Stupid spellcheck x )
Thanks for the kind thought Carpeye. Trying to take care of my dad proves to me she really was a saint LOL.
Good for you. Your family is one in a million.
Agree. It’s really sad what’s happened to Chamblee. BTW, the old Rexall is still open and serving breakfast and lunch in downtown Duluth!
The Woolworth’s in Suitland had a lunch counter. We would eat there every so often, but Mom and Grandmom didn’t trust it much because it was food not cooked at home.
That’s good to hear. I used to eat there regularly for lunch about 18 years ago and it was pretty good food. I haven’t had occasion to go there since but figured it had gotten swallowed up by all the sprawl. It was always busy because of the food and the atmosphere I think.
5 of everything.
Sometimes when we made a “trip to town” in our ’55 Chev station wagon we’d eat at the counter of Woolworth’s and order from that very menu. They usually had a daily special, something like meat loaf or spaghetti. The store had a certain “smell” because of the large amount of cheap Japanese merchandise. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Ditto, Billy. I always got a burger and fries since we never had them at home. Hummm, crispy fries hot out of the fryer!
Gimme a beer, and keep ’em coming.
I’ll have the Ivanka sandwich…extra mayo
Are any seats available at the ‘Whites Only’ counter?
Azalea Mall,
Woolworth at one end and Woolco at the other.
And everything in between.http://www.labelscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/azalea-mall-01.jpg
I didn’t get to sample Woolworth’s until I was around 16-17. Everything before that was the heavily chromed diner on the main drag.
Actually, I’m old enough to realize that menu’s not that old…Coke was a dime. When I was a kid, a hamburger was 15 cents and a Coke or a Hershey bar was a nickel.
But I worked, pretty hard as I recall it, for $2 a 10 hour day…that was the summer between the 5th and 6th grades.
If you adjust for inflation, prices haven’t changed much. What has changed is that all that inflation destroyed a lot of people’s savings and pushed all of us into ever higher taxes.
That’s why a mother that worked outside the home was a rarity when I was a kid; one that doesn’t is a rarity today…Mom has to work full time to pay the taxes on Dad’s income. Thanks, “progressives”
We had GC Murphy’s in this neck of the woods. I remember sitting at the lunch counter with Grandma. They had the best donuts with varied colored icings. Downstairs the pet department where we would dream of the critters we wanted to have as pets but folks said no.
A local diner still has the donut machine all the rest is gone.
Where was the Azalea mall?
Ah Woolworth’s!
My memory is that I was about 7 yo and was going through a girly girl phase and decided I wanted to carry a purse. We had lunch at the counter and I left my purse under my stool! OH noes!
I’ll have an egg salad sandwich and a vanilla milkshake.
Woolworth’s Rye Ridge had a fountain counter where your back was in the aisle. No tables, just spinning stools. The best grilled cheese and cherry cokes.
What? No Green River on the menu?
My departed grandmother worked the counter at Woolworth’s in Queens before they closed it down. My siblings and I loved visiting her at work. Good memories!
Give me a BLT and a cherry chocolate phosphate
anyone here remember phosphates? I give my soul to have one.
I’d kill for one of those banana splits!! I probably haven’t had one since high school. They just don’t make them like that anymore!
DH worked there when he was in 11th grade. Dishwasher. He hated it! Lol!
“Extra Rich Ice Cream Soda”. As opposed to the “We were broke when we left the WH soda”.
I remember this menu. When I was little, if I was “very good” while my mom did her shopping, we would go to the fountain at Woolworth’s and I could have an ice cream sundae. Later when I was a teenager, my first summer job was a cook for Woolworth’s but that store actually had a restaurant separate from the store instead of just the fountain counter. I cooked a lot of burgers and fries that summer, I think it was 1973.
Northside of Richmond Va
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaW0M6V85j8
.
Ladies, do any of you remember buying Evening in Paris perfume at the dime store?
Remember when they did the balloon promotion where you paid the amount on the little slip of paper (that was inside the balloon you chose and popped) for a banana split?
I’ll have the baked ham and cheese with a chocolate malt and a huge side of nostagia. I remember Evening in Paris, Zonga. 🙂
I remember eating there and thinking ‘ how could a sandwhich cost .50’
.30 is bad enough.
.50 in 65 was about $3.75 today
i stopped at woolworths on the way home from school. Sometimes had money for a coke. It always tasted better than the bottled cokes. and sometimes fries.
is a sweet memory.
I remember Evening in Paris, too … *sigh* …
Paris Jones
Paris Smith
Paris Johnson
Paris Graham
Paris Boehner
Paris Emanuel
Paris Hilton … oh, wait, that was Perez …
Zonga ………. when I was a kid, one xmass my father gave my mother a beautifully wrapped box.
When she removed the top, it was a display of everything ”EVENING IN PARIS” made…… I can remember the dark blue satin underneath all of the items. Powder, spray cologne, the perfume in the blue cut glass with the silk fringe tassel. My poor dad thought that was such a beautiful gift, and mother knew that the box cost over $100, she slipped it in into a dresser drawer where it remained for nearly 50 years until her recent death.
It wasn’t all increased taxes that put Mom in the work force. At one time, average Americans had few luxuries to pay for. Clothes were washed in a wringer washer (or even by scrub board) and dried on a clothesline. Cooling and heating were handled by electric fans and space heaters. Everybody had a radio, but only the well-to-do had a TV. Cooking was done at home with a stove, and food was simpler and cheaper; “fast food” was almost nonexistent, and “eating out” was a rare treat. If you had a car (some people didn’t, and rode the bus) you only had one, and it was paid off as soon as possible, to avoid being in debt. Credit cards were non-existent – if you couldn’t afford something, you either put the item on layaway or did without until you could save up enough money to pay cash.
NOW, everyone has to have a washer and dryer, central A/C and heat, a TV in every room, one or two microwaves, and at least one personal computer. Most households have more than one automobile. Fast food and dining out at least once a week are considered perfectly normal, as is massive credit card debt and the resulting interest charges. Most families can’t afford all these things on one person’s salary, of course, and that’s the REAL reason why Mom’s working and paying someone else to take care of the kiddies.
In my humble opinion, that is.
🙂
I’ll have one of everything and it will still be cheaper and taste better that a Ruth Chris steak…..
I hope she or someone else found a way to tell your Dad how much she appreciated his gift. Because she never used it, it’s possible he may not have ever known.
http://www.homemade-dessert-recipes.com/phosphate-soda-recipes.html
My maternal grandmother worked at a Woolworths in southern CA. I loved it when we would go visit her at lunch time. Great memories. Grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate shake for me!
Caroleigh – my mom was the same way. I’m still going through her things after she passed (my dad is still living and he has to go through it himself to approve getting rid of anything and he still doesn’t want to throw her “stuff” away regardless of value or condition). We would give her things over the years and she would always say they were too nice to use / wear. Now I’m finding all of it still in the original gift box.
We always knew she appreciated it …… maybe a little too much because she always wanted to save it for when she wasn’t working so it wouldn’t get dirty or ruined in some way. It’s bittersweet going through all of it because the “later” in “saving it for later never came”. I remember her saying that “Evening in Paris” was “high class” perfume when she was young.
That menu is pretty old. What’s the shelf life on that food? lol
Man, it’s been years since I’ve had a good chicken salad sandwich.
The Woolworths in Ottawa had their lunch bar in the basement. They used to serve a chocolate malted that was so thick it took awhile to eat. You’d end up using the straw as a sort of a spoon until it was soft enough to drink. Actually come to think of it I think Wendy’s stole the idea and called it a Frosty which is good but not as good as the old Woolworth’s.
Our Woolies had fish fry on Fridays. Real fish, not a pressed square, on a hoagie bun. In the summer they made fresh strawberry pie.
There was a craft department downstairs where you could buy stamped linens to embroider and fabric.
In the summers in NC I worked at the Roses’ Dime store lunch counter. Fried chicken, hush puppies, mashed, green beans and warm banana pudding on Saturday’s.
The place still had wooden floors and ceiling fans.
There was a candy counter where the store’s sole black employee reigned supreme. I remember buying bubblegum with horror movie trading cards, wax nips, candy cigarettes, bubble gum cigars, Bonomo Turkish Taffy and Black Cows.
The craft department and the all the Barbie’s were downstairs too.
I hate malls.
Yes! Thanks for the reminder. I once got a 1 cent banana split.
Yes and you can still get it along with other old fashioned favorite cosmetics at Vermont Country Store.
http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/store/?searchid=7SPDBRND&feedid=googlebrand&adpos=1t1&creative=76461336138&device=c&matchtype=e&network=g&gclid=CIehje2RmMcCFQwyaQodW8EO6A
I still love Tweed.
Awesome post!! This describes not only my parents but how hubby and I have lived our lives.
If you can’t pay off the credit card when it’s due, you can’t afford the purchase.
Car loan? Nope. Drive a car into the ground while saving $100 per month to pay for the next car. 12-16 years later, you have good cash to buy a decent car.
Latest, greatest? Nope. Our house is almost 22 years old and still has the same kitchen and bathrooms. And an unfinished basement. Realtors strike us down!!!
And guess what? I was a “stay at home mom” and made sure our kids were educated, supported and loved.
It was about the kids, not us.
Woolies used to sell ‘The Book of Life Savers’ around Christmas. Maybe 10 different rolls were in it. It was $5 and too much for my kiddie wallet. My mother would never get us one because she said it was too much sugar. Later we found she was buying them, hiding them in the closet and eating them herself. Sigh…
And, oh yes, loved the lunch counter at the Chamblee Plaza Woolworth’s when I was a kid. A treat! 🙂
I remember. It was a good America to live in. Woolworths was fun. I remember. And it makes me sad remembering.
It’s pretty hard to even find American food in Chamblee these days (or anyone that speaks English for that matter), much less the type served at the ol’ Woolworth’s.lunch counter.
The Rose’s and Woolworth (called “five and dime” as per the signs on the store front) in my hometown didn’t have a lunch counter, but the Rexall Drugs on the town square with them did.
Evening in Paris at amazon $30 and free shipping
Soir De Paris By Bourjois For Women. Eau De Parfum Spray 1.6 Oz.
Reminds me of the story about the woman who had a beautiful dress, but she kept putting off wearing it because the occasion wasn’t right, she didn’t want to get it messed up, etc., etc. This went on for years. Finally, at long last, she got to wear the dress. They buried her in it.
It’s kinda neat to see “Evening in Paris” gain some respectability again, because by the time I got to high school it had become somewhat of a joke. It was inexpensive at the time, and it was usually the only fragrance that schoolkids could afford to buy Mom for Mother’s Day and Christmas. As a result, most Moms’ dresser drawers were awash in the stuff. It was pretty much the epitome of el cheapo perfume, at least in the town where I grew up. I used to refer to it as “Midnight at McCrory’s” (McCrory’s was a local five and dime store, like Woolworths).
🙂
A prayer to your mothers memory Brother. Who says saints don’t walk among us?
Stupid spellcheck x )
Thanks for the kind thought Carpeye. Trying to take care of my dad proves to me she really was a saint LOL.
Good for you. Your family is one in a million.
Agree. It’s really sad what’s happened to Chamblee. BTW, the old Rexall is still open and serving breakfast and lunch in downtown Duluth!
The Woolworth’s in Suitland had a lunch counter. We would eat there every so often, but Mom and Grandmom didn’t trust it much because it was food not cooked at home.
That’s good to hear. I used to eat there regularly for lunch about 18 years ago and it was pretty good food. I haven’t had occasion to go there since but figured it had gotten swallowed up by all the sprawl. It was always busy because of the food and the atmosphere I think.