“Come for a cocktail and stay for dinner”

Something about this ad, from the July 4, 1936 New Yorker, is really appealing right now on a hot, muggy night. The many Schrafft’s restaurants that dotted the city from 1917 to the 1970s were famous lunch and ice cream spots. Here they were chasing a grown-up, urbane customer.

Schrafft’s is immortalized in J.D. Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. “There’s a Schrafft’s on 79th Street!” says a tired, thirsty female character stuck in traffic after an abruptly cancelled wedding. “Let’s go have a soda and I can phone from there! At least it’ll be air-conditioned!”

Today, 222 West 57th Street is Lee’s Art Shop. Vanishing New York has more Schrafft’s history, including the fate of an unusual Schrafft’s building on 13th Street and Fifth Avenue, here.