Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 19, Number 1, Spring, 2007 Page: 6
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fwe could travel back in time to 1890 and
walk around downtown Dallas looking for
a place to eat, we would find that there were
three times as many saloons as restaurants.
Saloons often used such sly names as the Post
Office, the Board of Trade, and the Senate (all
these located on Conmmerce or Main Streets),
while the "restaurants" identified themselves as
"lunch stands, lunch counters, or chop houses."
And it would be obvious that in both kinds of
establishments the customers were exclusively
men, since in the nineteenth century
"respectable" ladies did not frequent public
restaurants."'
The only occasions for ladies dining outside
their homes would have been in the dining
rooms of hotels, where women's clubs might
meet or women might host small luncheons,
and, a bit later, the tea rooms in department
stores or other downtown buildings would offer
a respectable place to have a meal.2 Women's
interest in getting out of the house to eat was
obvious when the Oriental Hotel opened in
1893, for The Dallas Morning News reported:
People crowded allfive stories of the building,
but great masses of ladies concentrated
on the first floor above the ground floor.
Here were several attractions, such as the
parlors, dining room and bridal changer.
Dining room and kitchen were crowded
with lady visitors. To the north of the
kitchen is the ladies' ordinary [a dining
place which serves a complete meal iln which
all courses are included at one fixed price]
where late meals are set. It can seat 75.'
After the turn of the century, the number of
restaurants continued to grow as the population
of the city of Dallas expanded to some 158,000
by 1920.4 There were 214 restaurants (25 listed
as "colored") noted in the City Directory that
year, but no official listings for "Saloons" as
Prohibition had arrived and the sale of liquor
was illegal.The names of many of the restaurantslisted in 1920 reflect the arrival of immigrants
who were opening ethnic restaurants, a number
of which served the dishes of their homelands,
with the Shanghai Cafe ("Chop Suey and all
kinds of Chinese Dishes") on Main, five restaurants
owned by Martinezes, Rosales, Villareals,
and Evangelistas, and the Blue Front
Delicatessen on Elm Street. In addition, the
YWCA cafeteria, Carolina Tea Room, Kosher
Delicatessen, the Adolphus Caf&, Grille, and
lunch counter, along with the Oriental Hotel
Restaurant, the Oak Cliff Barbeque and Chile
Parlor, and the No Tip Restaurant offered meals
to the dining public, which was beginning to
include working women.
Another social change in the 1920s that
affected restaurants was the phenomenal growth
in the number of cars and trucks registered in
Dallas County. There were 51,622 registered
vehicles driving over more than 1,000( miles of
paved, surfaced, or gravel roads crisscrossing the
county.6 This infatuation with automobiles
prompted Dallas entrepreneur Jesse G. Kirby to
observe,"People with cars are so crazy they don't
want to get out of them to eat."7
So, Kirby must have thought, why not
accommodate these car lovers? In 1921,with $300
in capital, Kirby and his partner Dr. Reuben W
Jackson, created the first restaurant in the U. S. to
take orders from cars that pulled up to the curb.
The first Pig Stand, named because the signature
offering was Kirby's barbecued pork sandwich,
was located at the corner of Chalk Hill Road and
the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike in Oak Cliff.'
With streets on two sides of the building, it
was ideal for "curb service."The server would hop
up on the running board of the car, take the order
and head for the kitchen.When he returned with
the food, he again hopped up on the running
board and delivered the food. Front this routine
came the name "car hop" and the gender free
name stuck, from the first teen-aged boys wearing
white hats and shirts with black bow ties, to the
uniformed glamorous young women who
replaced them when World War II began.'6 LEGACIES Spring 2007
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Dallas Historical Society. Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 19, Number 1, Spring, 2007, periodical, 2007; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth35086/m1/8/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Historical Society.