Bickford's (restaurant)

Bickford's Restaurants and Cafeterias is a chain of cafeteria-style restaurants founded in 1921. From the 1920s through the 1970s, the chain was a mainstay in the New York City area. From the 1970s through the 2000s, the chain was primarily located in the New England area. As of April 2024, the company operates 1 location in Massachusetts.

Bickford's and Foster's Cafeterias influenced Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Woody Allen, Andy Warhol, William Styron, and Herbert Huncke.

thumb|Bickford's Restaurant Rt.1, Saugus, Massachusetts, 2001

Lunchrooms

Samuel Longley Bickford (1885–1959) began his restaurant career in 1902. In the 1910s, he was a vice president at the Waldorf System lunchroom chain in New England and, in 1921, he established his own quick-lunch Bickford's restaurants in New York. Bickford's lunchrooms offered modestly priced fare and extended hours. Bickford's architect was F. Russell Stuckert, who had been associated with Samuel Bickford since 1917. Stuckert's father, J. Franklin Stuckert, had designed buildings for Horn & Hardart in the 1890s. A 1964 New York City guidebook noted:

:Breakfast at Bickford's is an old New York custom. In these centrally located, speedy-service, modestly-priced restaurants a torrent of traffic is sustained for a generous span of hours with patrons who live so many different lives on so many different shifts.

Bickford's corporate headquarters were eventually located in Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts. Financial forecaster Jeffrey S. Bickford, the grandson of the founder, maintains a website devoted to Bickford's nostalgia.

As of 2016, four locations remained, all in Massachusetts: Bickford's Grille, in Brockton, Burlington, and Woburn, and Bickford's Family Restaurant, in Acton. On December 30, 2018, the Brockton Bickford's Grille closed its doors after Tommy Doyle's Pub & Grill bought the restaurant building to expand their business. The Acton location closed in 2020, and the Woburn location closed in October 2024, leaving just the Burlington location in operation .

Foster's cafeterias

thumb|right|A streetcar passing a Foster's in San Francisco in 1970

Foster's Cafeterias were operated under Bickford's Foster's Lunch System, Ltd. subdivision, headquartered in San Francisco, California. By 1959, there were 28 Foster's Cafeterias & Bakeries in San Francisco and other locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Oakland, Berkeley and San Mateo. The Foster's Lunch System, Ltd. also operated the Moar's Cafeterias, in Hillsdale Shopping Center at 70 Hillsdale Plaza in San Mateo and 33 Powell Street, just north of the cable car turntable with a large mosaic by Benny Bufano on one wall.

Foster's cafeterias were known for Foster's English Muffins, sourdough English muffins that were sold packaged at the cafeterias to take home. These muffins were often mentioned by Herb Caen in his column. They were also sold in supermarkets and groceries.

Literary References

Bickford's

Jack Kerouac sometimes wrote while sitting in Bickford's, and he mentioned the restaurant in Lonesome Traveler. Other members of the Beat Generation could be found at night in the New York Bickford's:

:The best minds of Allen Ginsberg's generation "sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's," he wrote in Howl. The Beat Generation muse, Herbert Huncke, practically inhabited the Bickford's on West 42nd Street. Walker Evans photographed Bickford's customers, and Andy Warhol rhapsodized about Bickford's waitresses. Bickford's made its way into the work of writers as diverse as Woody Allen and William Styron. He took vows there about January 1955 with Peter Orlovsky to be his lover, their promise being "that neither of us would go into heaven unless we could get the other one in".

References

External links

Bickfords Grille
Bickford, Jeffrey S. Bickford's, Inc. - History/photos 1922-1959