I came across this ancient Washington Post ad on Flickr. I had never imagined 1920s businessmen having Chinese food for lunch.
Image from rockcreek's Flickr stream
Out of curiosity I looked up "1920s Chinese restaurant" and found the Google Books' preview for China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West:
"The Los Angeles City Directory for 1924 listed 28 Chinese restaurants. The telephone directories for the city of Philadelphia for 1920 included 8 Chinese restaurants... In 1929, when the Chinese and Japanese numbered only 2.3% of California's population, they served 4.3% of all restaurant meals consumed."
The author goes on to mention Forbidden City, a San Francisco night club with a Chinese chorus line, and New Shanghai Terrace Bowl, a restaurant that solicited non-Chinese customers by handing out coupons in department stores.
But neither example is as intriguing as the Republic Cafe, a non-Asian-sounding venue that advertised Asian food to a non-Asian audience. Somehow I've always thought of DC as a less culinarily adventurous place than California or New York, but apparently that's not true!
You might be interested in this project and blog on Chinese restaurants. Lots of stats and history and modern lore.
http://www.indigosom.com/crpintro.html
Posted by: Dave Monk | January 31, 2008 at 09:56 PM