I was surprised to find this menu as I had never seen one like it before. No doubt there are still others not on my checklist, which now has 124 confirmed menu covers in the color wrap-around photo series, 115 of which are in my collection. Even more surprisingly, and unlike almost every other menu featuring photos of the San Francisco Bay Area, this one was not used on the City of San Francisco but the City of Los Angeles.
Click image to download a 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.
Being a lunch menu, this one does not offer a special steak dinner. Yet it does have a greater variety than many dining car dinner menus. Plate lunches include filet of sole, hot beef sandwich, chicken ala king, fruit plate with cottage cheese, and chef’s salad bowl, all with various trimmings. All of these are either $2.00 or $2.10, about $16 in today’s money.
The a la carte side has eight entrées, including unspecified Pacific Coast fish, trout, lamb chops, and various egg combinations. It also has a cold salmon plate and seven different sandwiches, plus assorted appetizers, breads, desserts, and beverages. Many of these cost as much or more than the plate lunches; the brook trout or lamb chops, for example, are $2.50 while ham and eggs are $2.00. Since the plate lunches came with dessert and beverage, they were the better deal.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, to buy this menu I had to also buy eleven others whose covers are already in my collection. Two of them are identical, both front and back, to others I’ve presented here, but the other nine have different menus on the back. For the sake of completeness, I’ll post three of these menus during each of the next three days.