Surely you remember some of my previous stories about The Stable, a restaurant venture conceived by Allen Gary and George Early, who went on to develop the Admiral Benbow chain. Described as a "Dispenser of Southern Horse-pitality" this might be considered one of the first "theme" restaurants in town. The decor was decidedly rustic — done up inside like, well, an old stable, and the menu (shown here) had several dishes with rather unusual names.
Well, it was mainly the salads (and gosh, there were quite a lot of them). These were named after various horse-drawn conveyances: Stagecoach, Hack, Hansom, Buggy, and more.
I guess the owners thought that was enough, because the main dishes had no clever names at all. You had your pick of regular fare: various sandwiches, fried chicken, and four kinds of steaks. What's missing, it seems to me, is any kind of seafood. I guess that wasn't very plentiful in stables across the land.
I couldn't help noticing that a regular hamburger cost only a dime, but a "Special Hamburger" with lettuce, tomato, and chips costs five cents more. Gosh, what did you get with the regular hamburger — just a bun?
You'll also notice a few oddities on the menu that you probably won't find in Memphis restaurants today. First of all, I don't know anybody who serves a "chopped olive" sandwich (rather pricey here, at 20 cents). Yum!
And Memphians in the 1950s seemed to have a particular (and inexplicable) fondness for gooseliver. At the Stable, patrons had their choice of a gooseliver sandwich (20 cents) or, if they really wanted to splurge, they could spend 40 cents for the "Hack Salad," which contained gooseliver, baked ham, American cheese, Swiss cheese, and slaw.
Not a mention of lettuce.
Finally, I just want to point out the prices of these items. A mug of Falstaff was 10 cents, as was the hamburger or a toasted cheese sandwich. Most of the steaks cost less than a dollar; the most expensive item on the menu was the "Planked T-Bone" and that was only $1.25.
Yes, I know times have changed, but gosh wouldn't it be nice to go out to eat, get a decent meal, and even if you had only a dollar, you still had enough left over for a tip?
