Saturday, December 31, 2016

Thompson’s Cafeteria Restaurants of Chicago, Illinois.

Although it is largely forgotten today, the Chicago-based John R. Thompson Company was one of the largest "one arm lunchrooms" chains of the early 20th century. Food would be very cheap but customers had to sit in a schoolroom style chair with a small eating surface and widespread out arm-rests, one being short, making it difficult to get real comfortable and stay too long. It was Thompson's way to turn-over tables faster and increase profits by decreasing a customer's dining time.
We so strongly associate fast-food chains with hamburgers that it may be surprising to learn that Thompson’s popular sandwiches included Cervelat (a cooked sausage), smoked boiled tongue, cold boiled ham, hot frankfurter, cold corned beef, cold salmon, and Herkimer County cheese, served on “Milwaukee Rye Bread” baked by the restaurant chain’s own bakery.
Thompson’s Cafeteria Restaurant at Madison and Kedzie, Chicago. Circa 1933.
Thompson's Cafeteria on Randolph Street, Chicago.
Thompson was proud that his meals were suited for sedentary office workers of the early 1900s. A 1911 advertisement claimed that lunch at Thompson’s “won’t leave you logy and lazy and dull this afternoon.” Thompson, an Illinois farm boy, ran a rural general store as his first business. He sold it in 1891, moved to Chicago, and opened a restaurant on State Street. He proved to be a modernizer in the restaurant business as well as in politics.

He operated his cafeteria's on a “scientific” basis, stressing cleanliness, nutrition, and quality while keeping prices low. In 1912 he moved the chain’s commissary into a premier new building on North Clark Street. Thompson’s, then with 68 self-service lunchrooms plus a chain of grocery stores, became a public corporation in 1914, after which it expanded outside Chicago and into Canada.

By 1921 there were 109 restaurants, 49 of which were in Chicago and 11 in New York with a commissary (a restaurant or cafeteria in a military base, prison, movie studio or other institution) in New York City. By the mid-20s Thompson’s Restaurants, Childs Restaurants, and Waldorf Lunch System were the big three U.S. restaurant chains.
John R. Thompson Restaurant Office:
350 North Clark Street

John R. Thompson Restaurant Locations:
350 North Clark Street
15 West Adams
141 North Clark Street
354 North Clark Street
528 North Clark Street
44 South Clark Street
220 South Clark Street
520 South Clark Street
105 North Dearborn Street
337 South Dearborn Street
414 South Dearborn Street
80 East Jackson Boulevard
24 West Jackson Boulevard
60 West Madison Avenue
119 West Madison Avenue
339 West Madison Avenue
521 West Madison Avenue
811 West Madison Avenue
955 West Madison Avenue
1548 West Madison Avenue
3200 West Madison Avenue
1152 South Michigan Avenue
1418 South Michigan Avenue
2201 South Michigan Avenue
31 East Monroe Street
61 West Monroe Street
340 Plymouth Court
91 West Randolph Street
62 East Roosevelt Road
314 South State Street
412 South State Street
76 West VanBuren Street
110 West VanBuren Street
7 South Wabash Avenue
104 South Wabash Avenue
207 South Wabash Avenue
343 South Wabash Avenue
175 West Washington Street
3813 North Broadway
3875 Cottage Grove Avenue
235 South Halsted Street
1223 South Halsted Street
4167 South Halsted Street
6215 South Halsted Street
6243 South Halsted Street
3169 North Lincoln Avenue
1228 North Milwaukee Avenue
1581 North Milwaukee Avenue
206 West 31st  Street
1122 West 35th Street
1031 West Wilson Avenue
In politics, Thompson served as a Republican committeeman and managed the campaign of a “good government” gubernatorial candidate in 1904. A few years later he failed in his own bid to run for mayor, promising he would bring efficiency to the government while improving schools and roads. In the 20s he financed a personal crusade against handguns.


Despite John R. Thompson’s progressive politics, his business would go down in history as one that refused to serve Negroes. Or, as civil rights leader Marvin Caplan put it in 1985, “If the chain is remembered today, it is not for its food, but for its refusal to serve it.” Thompson died in 1927.
Where he stood on the question of public accommodations is unclear but the chain faced numerous lawsuits by Negroes in the 1930s. However, the best-known case occurred in 1950 when a group of integrationists led by Mary Church Terrell was refused service in a Washington D.C. Thompson’s Restaurant. 

The group was looking for a case that would test the validity of the district’s 19th-century public accommodations laws. After three years in the courts, the Thompson case (for which the Washington Restaurant Association raised defense funds) made its way to the Supreme Court which affirmed the so-called “lost” anti-discrimination laws of 1872 and 1873 as valid.

Over the years the Thompson chain absorbed others, including Henrici’s and Raklios. At some point, possibly in the 1950s, the original Thompson’s concept was dropped. 

By 1956 Thompson’s operated the Holloway House and Ontra CafeteriasIn 1971, as Green Giant prepared to buy Thompson’s, it had about 100 restaurants, including Red Balloon family restaurants, Henrici’s restaurants, and Little Red Hen Chicken outlets. 

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Sally Rand (Helen Gould Beck) 1904-1979, "Fan Dancer" at Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair of 1933 and "Bubble Dancer" at the Fair in 1934.

"Although reformers have raised a storm of protest over nude dancers in the Streets of Paris, the Oriental Village, and Old Mexico at the Chicago World's Fair, the dances have not yet been stopped. One of the girls, Sally Rand, is shown in her "Fan Dance," in which the feathers are her only covering, and do not cover her at times." Chicago, IL - July 22, 1933.
"I haven't been out of work since the day I took my pants off." Sally Rand.
She's considered an American icon in the world of entertainment although most contemporaries have no idea who she is until her legendary risqué "fan dance" is brought up. Then they put two and two together. Burlesque star Sally Rand was born in the Ozark Mountain town of Elkton, Missouri on Easter Sunday in 1904, her father a corporal in the Spanish-American War, and her mother a Pennsylvania Dutch Quaker.

Inspired by the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova, Sally became interested in dance at a young age and left home to join a carnival as a teen. She invariably became a cigarette girl, chorine, café dancer, artist's model, and circus performer (Ringling) through a series of introductions. She subsequently joined a repertory theater company and took acting seriously for the first time.

During the 20s she appeared in a number of stage shows. Films came her way as she was able to score work (due to her agile background in the circus) from Mack Sennett and Hal Roach in a few of their daredevil slapstick shorts. 

A Wampas (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) Baby Star of 1927, she joined mentor Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and entered feature films with a new name that DeMille gave her - "Sally Rand."
She decorated a number of silents, including westerns with Hoot Gibson and others, but a pronounced lisp hurt her career comes the advent of sound. It was at this juncture that the shapely dame decided to work on incorporating her talent for dancing back into her career. With the right mixture of enticement, imagination, and intricate feathery placement, Sally Rand came upon her secret formula to success.

As an exotic burlesque performer, she not only winningly ignited male libidos but found a steady gig for the rest of her days. A long-standing job at the Paramount Club in 1932 is where the idea of her "fan dance" was created.

Initially coming to Chicago in a show called "Sweethearts on Parade," in 1932, Sally soon accepted a position at the Paramount Club, in response to an advertisement for "exotic acts and dancers."

It was at the Paramount Club that she first performed the "fan dance," using two large ostrich feather fans purchased at a second-hand shop.

Following a "Lady Godiva" inspired stunt at the gates of the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair, Sally became a featured performer in the "Streets of Paris" concession and catapulted into stardom on May 30, 1933, with her performance of the now legendary "Fan Dance."
VIDEO
1933 Chicago World's Fair.
Sally Rand's Fan Dance Video
Nearly every account of Sally Rand's career includes the declaration that she "danced nude at the 1933 World's Fair."  Well, maybe.  As often as not Sally Rand's "nudity" was actually a body stocking or, perhaps, a coat of white theatrical cream.  Whatever the reality, the illusion was sensational.  As Sally manipulated two pink seven-foot ostrich fans to conceal and reveal much, but not all, only the eagle-eyed could successfully claim to have seen anything.

As you might imagine, the act was an unqualified sensation. At 29 years old, the diminutive (5' 1") damsel with the knockout figure (35-22-35) began packing them in by the thousands.  And it wasn't long before the shouts hit the fans.  Pillars of the community were outraged, public officials were consulted, and officers of the law were dispatched. Miss Rand found herself in court, answering to charges that certain performances at the Century of Progress Exposition were "lewd, lascivious, and degrading to public morals." To his credit, the judge was a man of sober perspective:
"There is no harm and certainly no injury to public morals when the human body is exposed, some people probably would want to put pants on a horse. When I go to the fair, I go to see the exhibits and perhaps to enjoy a little beer. As far as I'm concerned, all these charges are just a lot of old stuff to me. Case dismissed for want of equity." -- Superior Judge Joseph B. David, July 19, 1933
Some 22½ million paid visitors celebrated the Century of Progress in Chicago, ensuring that the name "Sally Rand" would be remembered for generations to come.

When the Chicago fair reopened in 1934, Sally perceived the need for something new: "I had to find a new twist." She decided on a bubble dance: "I wanted a balloon sixty inches in diameter, which is my height, made of a translucent or transparent material." The only trouble was that the biggest balloons available were a mere 30" in diameter. They were heavy red target balloons used by the War Department. Since no one knew how to make the required equipment, Sally fronted the funds for necessary experimentation herself. After numerous tests, the super-dooper, see-through bubble was born.
VIDEO
1934 Chicago World's Fair.
Sally Rand's Bubble Dance
In the 1930s she also appeared in legit plays including a stint as Sadie Thompson in "Rain" in 1935 opposite Humphrey Bogart. She would appear in later years at various revues, expositions and fairs still teasing and playing "hide and peek" with the guys, her act seldom straying from its original concept. 
She was arrested a few more times than she was married (at least three husbands can be credited to her marriage account). She continued to appear on stage doing her fan dance past age 60 and once replaced an ailing burlesque star Ann Corio in the stage show "This Was Burlesque" in the 1960s. She also shared the stage with burlesque topliners Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr. 

Sally's final appearance took place in Kansas City in 1978 and she died the following year.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

SALLY RAND PHOTO ALBUM