Harlem's Old Restaurants and Nightclubs View Full Caption

HARLEM — The Harlem food scene is nothing new.

In the 1920s, you could get a filet mignon at the Cotton Club for $2.25. If you wanted something fancier you had to go to Frank’s for a $4.50 T-bone with French fries and then walk across the street to Club Baby Grand and listen to the "greatest singing stars of stage, screen, and radio."

A collection of old menus from the restaurants and nightclubs of Harlem’s past from the Schomburg Center of Research in Black Culture give a glimpse into what the neighborhood used to look like.

“The Cotton Club era represents a time where Harlem was a major tourist destination,” said historian Michael Henry Adams. “These earlier restaurants often would cater to outsiders, many of whom where white and often times had some kind of theme or association with southern cuisines.”

The Cotton Club, which was on West 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue back then, had a policy of only hiring African American entertainers, waiters, and staff. Their customers were mostly white, he added.

Their menu cover shows a white man with two women being escorted into the club by an African American waiter. Half of the menu was Chinese food, which some restaurants at the time did to give customers "exotic" food options, Adams said.

While there was no written policy of denying service to minorities, the prices kept working class African Americans away from certain eateries.

“When you look at the prices of that menus they seem very, very, very low but when you consider what a dollar was capable of purchasing … in 1925 you could’ve bought most of your grocery list for $3.15,” Adams said.

When African Americans did visit some of these restaurants, they were often given the worst tables, by the kitchen away from the stage, and horrible service, he added.

But not all Harlem restaurants catered to tourists. The Savoy Ballroom, which was just one block south of the Cotton Club, was very popular amongst the locals, especially on Thursday night.

“That was the regular night off for the women who worked as maids and housekeepers,” he said.

Osei Rubie, the co-owner of New Harlem Besame on 2070 Seventh Ave., chose the site in part because it used to be owned by the famous boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, he said. He dug up some historical documents and found an old picture of the facade and a menu that highlighted the restaurant’s air conditioning system.

“It’s refreshing to be associated with this particular space because you are talking about one of the greats in sports and in business during the Harlem Renaissance era,” he said.

While Rubie made it a point to nod to his eatery's historic predecessor, many of the restaurants from that era are long gone. The Cotton Club is now an apartment building, the Savoy Ballroom is a supermarket, Small’s Paradise is an IHOP, and Club Baby Grand is now a Radio Shack.

Although most of the large ballrooms eventually went out of business, many Harlem restaurants continued to thrive into the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s.

Part of what kept them going is that African Americans were still discouraged from dining in other neighborhoods in the city, Adams said.

But as neighborhoods became more welcoming to African Americans, Harlem restaurants struggled to compete, he said. Some of them, like Health Food Restaurant, Singleton's BBQ and Cafe on the Park did not last long.

“One of my favorite places when I moved here was M&G Diner,” Adams said. “They were open all night. They had the best selection in terms of variety in their juke box that you could imagine.”

As new restaurants open in Harlem, owners need to be conscious of the legacy that was here before them, Rubie said.

“I think the onus is on us to continue to bring that history forward to share with others who have no idea or clue about the Harlem Renaissance,” Rubie said. “It’s our job to continue to let that legacy live on.”