We’ve previously seen this cover on a 1937 lunch menu I found on the New York Public Library web site. Since then, I’ve acquired one of my own, a lunch menu from 1938.
Click any images to download a 800-KB PDF of this menu.
Although the two menus are only a year apart, prices are much higher on the 1938 version. A table d’hôte meal of veal cutlets was 75¢ in 1937 but $1.10 in 1938. The difference is even bigger because consumer prices actually deflated by about 2 percent between those two years. The nation’s economy was supposedly recovering in 1938, so it is possible that SP lowered its prices during the Depression and then raised them again with the recovery.
The icon on the cover was printed in red in the 1937 version and green here. These colors seem to be chosen at random as they are unrelated to which meal is being offered or which year the menus were used.