Here’s a menu featuring the Banff Springs Hotel on the cover that was actually used at the Banff Springs Hotel. As far as I can tell, this particular menu cover was used exclusively at the hotel and not on Canadian Pacific dining cars or steamships. Though I try to focus on menus that would be used on dining cars, I really like the warm, colorful cover painting. Unfortunately, it is unsigned but the presence of the mountie makes me think it was done by a CP illustrator rather than a fine artist.

Click image to download a 1.0-MB PDF of this menu.

The menu is dated August 4, 1936, and offers both table d’hôte and a la carte lunches. The table d’hôte side offers nine entrées: club steak, veal sauce, curried turkey wings, pork and beans, prime rib, cold chicken and ham, fresh spinach with eggs Hollandaise, scrambled eggs with peas, and a fruit salad. For $1.50 (about $22.50 in today’s U.S. dollars), any of these were available with an appetizer, soup, whitefish, vegetables, salad, dessert, and beverage. Priced separately on the a la carte side, this meal would have cost more than $3.00.

For $1 (about US$15 today), there was also a cold plate lunch with soup or juice, a choice of either tuna salad or a platter of cold meats, dessert, bread, and beverage. The a la carte menu included most of the entrées listed above (generally for 75¢ to 90¢º plus a few more. Notably, the club steak is missing and instead there is a “small sirloin steak saute Banff Springs” with tomatoes, mushrooms, peas, and potatoes, for the same $1.50 that the complete meal cost with a club steak. I guess the sirloin was supposed to be a better cut of meat than the club steak. The a la carte side also had a wide variety of hors dóeuvres, soups, fish, vegetables, salads, and desserts.