I’ve previously mentioned how some eastern railroads would sell advertising space in their dining car menus. Pennsylvania’s 1962 General menu didn’t have any ads, but this 1964 Broadway Limited menu has several subtle ads on the back.
Click image to download a 1.0-MB PDF of this menu.
The first column on the back has “interesting facts” that turn out to be ads for such things as Coca-Cola, Canada Dry, and Clamato juice. The second column suggests “where to dine” in New York and Philadelphia. But there are so many restaurants in these two cities that the three mentioned here must have paid to be listed. This is confirmed by a discrete “(adv.)” at the end of each interesting fact and restaurant listing. The ads aren’t helped by the fact that the menu cover is printed in red-on-orange, making them hard to read.
The menu itself is fairly ordinary, featuring such typical breakfast items as eggs, corned beef hash, pancakes, French toast, and cereals. The most expensive item–eggs and sausage with juice or cereal, bread, and beverage for $2.20 (about $13 today).
Click image to download a 250-KB PDF of this envelope.
This particular menu came with an envelope that diners could use to mail the menu home to friends, thus turning the entire menu into an advertisement for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Since the envelope is unused, whoever collected this menu from the railroad didn’t help provide any free advertising.