There’s something about the memory of sitting at a lunch counter with a tray of pot pie or grilled cheese that hits differently than any modern food court experience. Department store cafeterias were more than just convenient pit stops during shopping marathons. They were social institutions, teaching kids how to order their own meals, introducing them to white tablecloths and silverware, and giving families a space to take a breather between floors. By the late 1960s, modernity made department store restaurants obsolete. The pace of life changed, and with it went an entire era of dining that shaped countless childhoods across America. Let’s look back at the cafeterias and lunch counters that once made shopping day feel like a special occasion.
Marshall Field’s Walnut Room
Marshall Field’s Walnut Room opened in 1907 in the department store on State Street in Chicago and still thrives today, making it America’s longest running continuously operated restaurant within a department store. Originally called the South Grill Room, the interior was so striking with Austrian crystal chandeliers and Russian Circassian walnut paneling that, eventually, the destination was renamed for that rich paneling. The menu includes a longtime favorite that actually predates the restaurant itself, going back to 1890: Mrs. Hering’s chicken pot pie. For generations of Chicago families, dining at the Walnut Room during the holidays became a cherished tradition, complete with a massive Christmas tree and elaborate decorations that transformed the restaurant into something magical.
Woolworth’s Lunch Counter
When its first lunch counter opened in New Albany, Indiana, around 1923, the F.W. Woolworth Company was already known for innovation, having been founded by Frank Winfield Woolworth in New York in 1879 and expanding to over 2,000 five-and-dime stores nationwide at its peak. These counters offered affordable meals where kids could perch on spinning stools and watch their burgers sizzle on the griddle. A 1939 menu featured cubed minute steak, pan gravy and buttered beets with a roll and French fries for 25 cents. The Greensboro, North Carolina location became a pivotal site in Civil Rights history during the 1960 sit-ins, ultimately leading to the desegregation of the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter on July 25, 1960. Woolworth’s dominance was challenged by a boom in discount retailers, and by 1997 the company closed its 400 remaining U.S. stores, with the last operating lunch counter, in Bakersfield, California, no longer owned by Woolworth, closing in 2022.
J.L. Hudson’s Restaurants
Detroit’s Hudson’s mushroomed from a small menswear shop in the 1880s, eventually becoming the nation’s second-largest department store, with the 33-story building being the world’s tallest department store, with more than 200 departments. During the holidays, it became a destination for everyone in Detroit, hosting parades and an impressive Christmas toyland. Hungry shoppers could fuel up in one of several fine restaurants, and the most notable dish, the Maurice Salad, remains a local favorite. Kids would crane their necks at the sheer scale of the building while their parents navigated the multiple dining options spread across different floors. The flagship store closed in 1983, taking with it all those Maurice Salads and childhood memories of dining under chandeliers between shopping stops.
Hecht’s Cafeterias
Founded by German immigrant Samuel Hecht in 1896, the store featured an art gallery on the eighth floor and customers frequently punctuated their shopping trips with lunch in the Courtyard Restaurant or tea in the Skyline Tearoom. The chain became a formidable presence throughout the mid-Atlantic region, though it also made history for less pleasant reasons. In July 1951, a mixed race group began to picket outside the store, protesting racial segregation in the store’s cafeteria, with the offending policy changed in January of the following year. On opening day at the Arlington Parkington location in 1951, an estimated 60,000 shoppers rushed in to sample the store’s 147 departments, including a large basement restaurant known as the Virginia Room. The Hecht’s chain was eventually absorbed by Macy’s in 2006, ending an era of regional department store dining.
Gimbels Restaurant
Gimbels was Macy’s plucky rival just a block from New York City’s Herald Square, a fight referenced in the classic movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” and patrons in the store restaurant in the ’60s could dine on a $1.65 filet of flounder, followed by 50-cent buttermilk fluff for desert. The chain had several large flagship stores, including in Philadelphia, where its inaugural 1920 Thanksgiving Day parade actually beat Macy’s to the punch by four years. Kids didn’t just come for the shopping or the Santa Claus sightings. They came for those affordable lunch specials that made them feel grown up ordering from a real menu. Later years saw Gimbels making a play for more middle- and lower-income shoppers than Macy’s, but constant discounting eventually did the store in, with the chain closing and sold in 1986 to various rivals.
L.S. Ayres Tea Room
When L.S. Ayres closed its tea room in 1990, indignant fans of the fading department store staged a protest. That’s how much this Indianapolis institution meant to local families who’d made it a ritual. The restaurant served home-style comfort food that felt both elegant and accessible, a combination that department store cafeterias perfected better than almost anywhere else. A smaller but faithful replica opened in 2002 at the Indiana State Museum, open only for the winter holidays, serving the specialties of yesteryear, including the famous chicken velvet soup. The tea room represented an era when lunch at a department store wasn’t just eating. It was an event, complete with proper place settings and servers who remembered your order from last time.
Wanamaker’s Crystal Tea Room
The better known restaurant in the Philadelphia store was the Grand Crystal Tea Room which opened on the 8th floor of the new Wanamaker’s completed in 1911, immense and filled with chandeliers, modeled on the tea room in the Philadelphia mansion of Robert Morris, a financier of the American Revolution. Also on the 8th floor, speedily reached by 24 direct-service elevators, were a number of private dining rooms, a men-only tea room, and the store’s ultra-modern kitchens. The Grand Crystal Tea Room survived the demise of Wanamaker’s and the tenure of its successor but finally closed in 1995 and is now a private banquet hall. Reaching that eighth floor felt like ascending to another world, where kids learned to use cloth napkins and parents lingered over tea while discussing their purchases.
Neiman Marcus Zodiac Room
Neiman Marcus got its start in Dallas, and their circa-1953 Zodiac Room restaurant offers a crash course in department-store cuisine with pot pie, popovers, and pot roast all on the menu, along with their specialty, Mandarin Orange Soufflé. The Zodiac Room represented the upscale end of department store dining, where everything from the linens to the lighting spoke of refined taste. Kids who ate there knew they were somewhere special, somewhere that required their best behavior and maybe even their Sunday clothes. Unlike most department store restaurants, the Zodiac Room concept still exists in some Neiman Marcus locations, though the experience has evolved considerably from those mid-century glory days when soufflé was the height of sophistication.
JCPenney Cafeterias
JCPenney stores once featured in-house cafeterias that offered affordable, no-frills meals perfect for families shopping on a budget. While not as ornate as Marshall Field’s or as historically significant as Woolworth’s, these cafeterias served their purpose beautifully. They offered comfort food classics and a place to rest weary feet without breaking the bank. The chain drastically reduced its footprint, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020 and announcing 242 store closings, with a total of 175 store closures as of June 2021. Those cafeterias gradually disappeared even before the bankruptcy, replaced by smaller snack bars or eliminated entirely as stores downsized. What remains is the memory of eating lunch surrounded by shoppers, the clatter of trays, and the simple pleasure of a grilled cheese sandwich in the middle of a shopping trip.
Lord & Taylor’s Bird Cage
Lord & Taylor’s Bird Cage restaurant and tea room was opened in the late 1930s and continued on the fifth floor of the Fifth Avenue New York City store until the 1980s when it was updated and renamed Café American Style. The Bird Cage offered an elegant escape from the hustle of Fifth Avenue shopping, with its distinctive décor creating an atmosphere that felt both whimsical and refined. Kids might have found the name amusing, but the experience taught them about proper dining etiquette in a setting that wasn’t intimidating. Lord & Taylor, the oldest department store chain in the United States, founded in 1826 in New York City, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 4, 2020. With its closure went yet another piece of department store dining history, another place where families gathered between floors to share a meal and plan the rest of their shopping adventure.
