Remember CC’s Street Scenes series? I fully intend to do more of these posts of mid-1980s bars, taverns and restaurants (and our main interest, the cars parked out front), but it keeps getting put on the back burner. But I have to share the fact that I personally visited one of these locations last Friday.
The original picture was taken on January 24, 1986. On September 13, 2013 these pictures were taken. Sadly, the slantback Olds was nowhere in evidence, but the restaurant is still there!
And so is the sign, and the fake-pagoda style roof! One of these days I’ll need to stop in and try their board of fare. I mean, if they’ve been in business for at least 27 years, the food’s got to be good, right?
For those readers who have found CC more recently, below are links to all of the Street Scenes posts I’ve done so far. And never fear, for more vintage shots of ’70s and ’80s CCs will be coming. Stay tuned…
I: Curbside Classics In Their Prime
I just checked out the original 8 posts and these are great. Interesting not just for the old cars but to see how things used to look, since I’m in central IL (B-N). I started reading the site around the time you started posting them and not sure how I missed them, but looking forward to seeing more.
Your post reminds me of this Chinese restaurant in Lake City, Florida.
I’ll bet is a total time warp inside, like the Chinese restaurant by my house, its been in same location for at least 30 years, same sign, menus, décor, they have a restaurant review on the wall from 1981. Ha!
There’s a really good Chinese restaurant in Milan, IL that has not changed since it opened in about 1990; they still have a review from 1992 by the cash register. The food is still really good though. I especially love their mo shu pork and mongolian beef.
Around here, the old places have like one really great thing that I like, and the rest is…ok. The place that my parents went to on opening night, with a 10 day old me, is sadly gone. It had the greatest fried rice. It was addictive. The egg rolls were unlike any others I’ve had, and among the best of those, but the rice was amazing. Salty, greasy? Of course. And it was even better if you took it home and warmed it up the next day. I used to buy two quarts at a time, one to eat, and one to freeze. The one I froze I would let thaw in the refrigerator the night before, and use it with peas and broccoli and some meat or fish of some kind, and it was just amazing. Now one place does fried rice really well, but the egg rolls are blah, and the shrimp and broccoli is just pretty bad. One night, I got my dinner from 3 places. I used to do that in Las Vegas, too.
My father had the twin to that Mercury Colony Park in the picture. I really liked that car. It was the first one I rode in that had automatic climate control.
Looked at them all, and great series! The others were published before I found CC; it’s funny, I found an old picture of my childhood street (with plenty of cars) a few weeks ago, and actually had the idea of doing a “vintage street” post.
I like the red pin stripes on your Volvo btw!
Thanks! It took most of Labor Day Weekend 2010 to get it properly applied–and a lot of patience! A neighbor who used to do it professionally gave me some pointers.
Actually, Tom, I’d assume the food is awful! Friends and I once visited a time-warp “Polynesian” place called the Bali Hai, off Route 128 north of Boston. The décor was entertaining. The main ingredient of every dish seemed to be Karo syrup.
Agreed. Reminds me of all those atrocious Midwestern Chinese restaurants I suffered through out of desperation in the seventies. Ugh!
The thing about Chinese restaurants is that they survive for decades on end because the owners and their family actually do the work, so they keep the place going regardless of how little they actually make. Where else are they going to go? Length of time in business is not necessarily a good indicator.
Wrong, they survive because of their connection to the international Panda Bear condiment and sauce mafia/triad, which bankrolls and offers protection to all Chinese restaurants in exchange for sauce distribution.
That’s the Post of the Week right there…
Then maybe it’s a good thing I went to the Candlelight Inn instead 🙂 The chicken bruschetta and Leinenkugel’s was pretty good!
These 80s pictures represent the end period of the “old” downtowns that had looked this way since before WWII in which businesses in the 80s were still owned, run, and patronized by that WWII generation. By this time they were looking pretty dilapidated, still sporting their 50s-60s signage. Things seemed to bottom out in the early 90s and since then some of these old downtowns have come back in a sort of reaction against the stip-malls outside of town. It’s nice that they aren’t bare and empty anymore, but what has come back in the place and stead of the hardware stores, men’s shops, and diners, to me, is less honest, there are fewer useful stores and straightforward restaurants, more artisanal cafes and one-product shops that sell things like cupcakes; sort of a SoHo-ization of Main Street.
I think the American cars and the old stores go hand in hand. The people who drove these cars, owned and patronized these stores, their values, and, specifically, the cars themselves, are all mostly gone.
Excellent observations, and I agree 100%.
This has played out in countless communities across the US and Canada for the past 30 years or so.
The cores of many towns and small cities have lost much of the unique character they used to possess because of this scenario playing out. With their downtowns a hollow shell of the thriving communities centers, and social hubs, they used to be.
This week, on Foodside Classics…..
Tom, I take it your dad was a liquor distributor. Otherwise, he had a really weird hobby.
Nope, he was a claims investigator.
Now I’m really intrigued. “Claims” as in claims for loss against insurance (general liability, premises liability, umbrella, etc.) policies? I reached the first conclusion (liquor distributor) due to each photographed business (liquor stores, bars, diners or restaurants) having some connection (perhaps imagined by my fevered mind) to the sale of alcohol…or is that just a coincidence?
/s/ The Nerdiest Guy I Know
No, not a coincidence. The office specialized in dram shop insurance until about fifteen years ago when they began to branch out into CGL, BOP and other coverage types.
Ah ha!!! Thanks for humoring my curiosity. I have thoroughly enjoyed this photo series.