Beaumont Cuisine in the 50s

The 50s were my adolescent years from 4 thru 14. We were a blue collar family without excess cash to spend on dining out. Here are some of the dining establishments that stick in my mind.

There were three Pig Stands, wonderful name. They each had inside dining areas as well as car hop service. The Pig Stand was my Dad’s go to place for breakfast pancakes. He taught me the difference between a short stack and a tall stack while breaking our fast on a Saturday morning at the Pig Stand. They made superb burgers and chocolate malts. I guess the fries were not very notable.

My dad and I would have breakfast at the Pig Stand on Calder after dropping mom off at the Beaumont Enterprise and Journal for her Saturday morning shift as a telephone operator.

There was a hamburger joint across from South Park High School operated by a family member (Strick Strickland) that also served a good burger.

We occasionally splurged and had seafood at Grangers in mid county. I recall fried shrimp but mostly flounder. My mom was serious in warning me to watch out for the bones. This was relatively pricey so we did not frequent it often. The same applied to the seafood places ‘across the ferry’ on the Seawall in Galveston.

Someone sold tamales to go near the viaduct - I had not yet developed a taste for them so I was not impressed at that time.

Patillos served barbeque to go, but we got it very infrequently. Dad had them smoke turkeys for us for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Downtown there were lunch counters at Kress and Neisners - good hamburgers and malts. I ate there regularly on Saturdays when I worked at Tyrrell Library. I could generally have lunch for under a buck. Occasionally I was joined by my maternal grandmother, Nora Barrett who worked at Bonwit Lennon.

Also downtown was the Piccadilly cafeteria. I occasionally did lunch there on Saturday, but not often because it was more expensive than the lunch counters.

In the late 50s this was a semi regular Sunday noon meal location following church and preceding a visit to the nursing home where my grandfather was ensconced. Good food and tasty desserts at a reasonable price. I recall that our family of four could do the Sunday meal for approximately $5.

There was a Mexican food restaurant on Calder, but my palate had not matured enough to like the food there. I do not recall any other ethnic food establishments.

There was a great burger place on Lucas drive near our home on Idylwood and it was often the takeout source for our Friday suppers. The burgers were the best in town and I have a hard time finding a burger that good today. The Brookins family (Lynnette’s family) drove all the way to North End to get burgers at this shop.

I had my first medium New York Strip at J&J sometime in the early 60’s and my whole opinion of steak was transformed. Let me segue just a bit into the early 60s. The setup for this tale is that my mom was a world class pie chef. She made great ones and I looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas so I could have multiple slices of each. So, my friend Jan Mickle invited me to join her and some friends from Beaumont High for a pizza pie at a new restaurant on the 11th street circle, Vic and Als. With my taste buds primed for icebox lemon pie, I had a slice of Italian pizza pie. What a let down!!! I am ok with pizza to this day, but it falls way short of my mom’s pies.