Restaurants

Restaurants in 1946 were numerous and varied, from the Automats to Le Pavillon. Restaurants had a boom time during the war that continued into the immediate postwar period. Rationed and hard-to-find foods could be enjoyed at restaurants but the meat restrictions and price controls of wartime had caused problems with many restaurants being fined or even shutdown for violations. Food rationing had ended by April 1946 but meat was in short supply. Retail butchers and consumers complained that the black market was diverting beef to restaurants while almost nothing was passing through legitimate channels.

For some reason, among the middle class eating out at dinner time was more of a custom for Jewish families, who made up a significant portion of the city's population. Most other middle income city residents seldom went to a restaurant for dinner unless celebrating a special occasion, out on a date or for business reasons. Inexpensive lunch places, however, drew a broad clientele.

Restaurant goers tended to patronize a handful of favorite spots back then rather than chasing down the heavily publicized hot spot of the moment. Many of the most popular spots of 1946 had been around since the 1920s. The top elite spots where the upper crust dined included '21,' the Colony, the Stork Club and El Morocco. All had restrictive door policies and sky-high prices. All had begun as speakeasies in the 1920s. The rich and famous also patronized high-priced French places like Chambord and Le Pavillon.