The car in the photo looks old fashioned even for 1949. But I’m pretty sure it is a 1948 or 1949 Dodge Coronet. Dodge and other Chrysler products were late to follow the low lines pioneered by Studebaker and Kaiser because Chrysler’s president, K.T. Keller, decreed that the roofs of all of the company’s cars be high enough to allow a man to wear a hat in the car.
Click image to download a 1.9-MB PDF of this menu.
This particular menu is dated September 8, 1949. Table d’hôte entrées include filet of sole, ham-and-green-onion omelette, steak, pork, roast chicken, and three cold plates. A la carte entrées include salmon, lobster, sole, chicken Provencale, beef tenderloin, breast of capon, roast chicken, and four cold plates–almost but not quite the same as yesterday’s lunch menu.
Yeah, it’s a 1948 Dodge or Plymouth. The 1949 model was substantially different. They were almost identical in a side view, so I can’t tell which it might be. Hats for women and men were still a big deal in 1949. Keller was an old school guy, and just didn’t realize the hat era was drawing to a close. I’m surprised they wouldn’t have shown a hotel car or bus rather than a generic civilian car. It might be to appeal to the increasing horde of Americans who were now taking a two week summer vacation by car.
I don’t know what “Filet Steak Saute, Martin” was but it was unusual for the CP to offer any steak on the table d’hote menu other than the sirloin dinner. Certainly, at $3.00 for a complete dinner, it was a much better deal than the small tenderloin alone at $2.25. Once again, ordering a la carte cost about $2.75 more than the same meal table d’hote, and ordering anything else entailed a considerable wait time. The room service at just a nickel a person was quite a deal however. I wonder if this was to increase their dining capacity by encouraging guest to eat in their rooms rather than clog up the dining room?
Jim