The Roosevelt Grill, New York, 1948

This highly stylised menu cover was for the Roosevelt Grill, a restaurant within the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

First, you see a swirl of gorgeous colours and then you pick out the swooning couple and a waiter about to serve drinks.

Dated 1948, it was probably a tribute to the avant-garde art movement.

The avant-garde enshrines innovative and exploratory art that is the singular vision of the artist. Sometimes it’s controversial. This may have applied to this menu image in which the male characters have one eye each and the woman has two – or she has one eye and a mouth. It’s fun to look back at this stuff.

The Roosevelt Hotel is a luxury historic hotel, located at 45 East 45th Street (and Madison Avenue) in midtown Manhattan. The hotel, named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt opened on September 22, 1924 and notched up several hospitality firsts.

It was the first hotel to incorporate store fronts instead of lounges in its sidewalk facades due to the Prohibition era. It housed the first guest pet facility and childcare service in the Teddy Bar Room, and it had the first in-house doctor.
It also employed talented artists who created imaginative menu covers such as this one.

Courtesy Private Collection. 

Each print is accompanied by a copy of the interior menu where available.

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