Some eating and dining places - there's a big difference between the two, I've found - have had a knack with snacks that has impressed customers.
I had occasions to check on some of these house specialties while living in Southern California some years ago. Most of these innovations could probably be copied successfully today.
I found that even the serving of a cup of coffee can be impressive, yet gracious, if accomplished with style. It was the Sheraton-Wilshire Motor Inn that serviced sleepy breakfasters with 14 1/2 ounce cups of coffee, the largest in L.A. A fringe benefit - arm workouts lifting about a pound and a half with each sip.
A weekend trip to Las Vegas provided the most unusual dining innovation. Along with the meal at Caesar's Palace came a comely slave girl, in typical diaphanous Arabian Nights costume, to pour the wine for each course of dinner and, if wished, hand feed grapes to the male customers. Her twin hovered in the background with a camera to take a souvenir picture of this scene, for a few bucks extra.
As with other establishments bowser bags were furnished to take home those extra choice filets your eyes devoured but your stomach couldn't handle. Lesser places on the Strip, I noted, provided guests with Ivy League napkins (that buttoned down the shirt front) and heralded humorous fortunes inside garlic sticks.
Reuben's in Santa Monica extended its take-home options to Herring Hampers, Bagel Bundles and Lox Boxes, while the Young China Cafe in Hollywood facetiously offered Dragon Bags. A waitress at Hollywood's Seventh Veil said they were considering Shiska Shirts for their shishkabob-to-go and Shiska Suitcases for family portions.
\ Teenagers at the time had their own supper club in Hollywood, called the Stratford-on-Sunset. It offered an after-dinner dessert named The Tempest. This gastronomy had 18 scoops of ice cream to it, plus the usual nuts, fruit and creams garnishes, and it was advertised as free to anyone who could swill it all in one sitting..
At the other extreme were the calorie-conscious who lunched at Andre's in Beverly Hills. The dessert cart there tinkled a silver bell on its rounds so these stay-slim-at-all-costs gals could look the other way as it passed. Rand's Restaurant, in the same area, used a bell, too, but for a very different reason. Its Happy Hours drew big spenders who liked to spread the joy around by "buying for the house". So owner Ray Rand installed a cow bell and any patron who felt expansive could clang it to signal his largesse to the assemblage. It became an instant status symbol.
The personal touch status symbol at Tarantino's had repeat customers picking up glasses with their names in gold on them as they came in. And the Santa Ynez Inn, after hosting about 3,000 wedding receptions, copied the name-in-cement idea made famous at Grauman's Chinese Theater for actors. Their brides and grooms were immortalized by setting their handprints and autographs in the cement floor of the Terrace there.
Personalization was taken to a high art at the Hollywood Beverly Hills Hotel. Management there kept a dossier on every repeating guest so they were prepared for that guest's second visit, whether it was doggie delights for the pet poodle at 2 a.m.- should you and your poodle be so demanding - or milk baths. One Texas oilman ordered bear steaks his first visit and the embarrassed kitchen staff couldn't furnish them. But when he returned the next year the steaks were ready for him, having been flown in from Alaska.
Beachcomber, Jr provided pull-up stools, which table hoppers could carry around with them as they socialized with friends at other tables. The Civic Center's Redwood Room catered to patrons with overflowing skins. A half-moon arrangement, called "the fat man's corner" by the help, boasted five extra inches on its seats.
Dodger Stadium's builders conceded that three-hour double-headers necessitated similar "contour" seat comfort. They even installed a few love seats, so couples could enjoy all three of America's national pastimes concurrently: eating, loving and baseball.
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