Someone collected these menus during a 1937 tour that went from Chicago to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe, Los Angeles to Portland on the Southern Pacific, Portland to Vancouver on the Great Northern, and Vancouver east on the Canadian Pacific. I only have a half-dozen menus from this trip and only one of them is particularly special, and I’ll present that in a couple of months when I get back to doing some Canadian Pacific items.
Click image to download a 584-KB PDF of this menu.
In the meantime, here’s a beverage menu from a Southern Pacific train, possibly the Coast Daylight. The menu cover says it was for “buffet service,” but it only lists wines, liquors, and other beverages, so the buffet menu must have been separate.
Click image to download a 584-KB PDF of this menu.
The other two menus are not from a train but since they were part of a train tour I might as well include them. Above is a breakfast menu showing standard American fare: scrambled eggs and bacon or sausage, or hot or cold cereals.
Click image to download a 651-KB PDF of this menu.
The other is a lunch menu, also at the Biltmore, that offered more variety. Entrées included broiled barracuda, veal, spaghetti with chicken livers, roast lamb, vegetables with poached egg (someone didn’t understand the concept of vegetarianism), or an omelette. There were also some cold entrées including sausage, chef’s salad, head cheese, and pickled lamb tongues. Any of these came with a soup or juice, dessert, and beverage. Desserts included peppermint candy ice cream, bread and butter pudding, cherry pie, or cheese and crackers.
Opened in 1923, the Biltmore Los Angeles was one of a chain of Biltmore hotels including ones in Atlanta, Miami, and New York, among other cities. Despite the name, the hotels were not affiliated with New York Central’s Vanderbilt family or any other railroad. For many years the Los Angeles Biltmore was the largest hotel in the West.