back to Manhattan dairy restaurants
Union Square area
[Ginny McGrath asked why Brownie's wasn't mentioned in The Dairy Restaurant. Although I remember remember Brownie’s very well, I thought of it as a health-food restaurant (one of many during the first half of the 20th c.) with not enough connections to Eastern-European dairy cuisine or Yiddish culture to warrant an entry in the book. I may have been wrong in that decision. I see that the obit describes it as a “dairy restaurant." I'd like to see a menu.]
Brownie's Creative Cookery, 19-21 East 16th Street, Manhattan (in operation c.1940–1985)
Operated by Samuel Brown [1917–1993] and his wife Edith. "Featured veal-style soya meat breaded with sesame seeds, wheat germ, soybean power and a little basil and other herbs." Featured Colonial-decor, served 600 to 800 lunches and dinners a day. Other dishes: eggplant steak, pseudo-Chicken Chow Mein, Chilli No Carne, lentils and mung beans Provencale and ravioli or lasagna made with ricotta and vegetable "bacon." Drinks included Tiger's milk flips, spinach "grasshoppers" and unfermented wines. In 1973, a three-course lunch was $2.75; diner $6.95. Mr. Brown was described as "a trim man with a flare of silver hair around his bald head and a twinkle behind his steel-rimmed aviator glasses." Regular customers included Danny Kay, Robert Cummings, Madge Evans and her husband Sidney Kingsley, Andy Warhol's crowd (cottage cheese, watercress and tomato sandwiches) and the Eric Hawkins dance company. Brown started working afterschool in a health food store and was "turned off" to meat by Upton Sinclair's novel and became a strict vegetarian between the ages of 14 to 19. The couple ate meat about twice a week. Brownie's was described as a "dairy restaurant with health food overtones." Brown opened his first health food store in the Union Square area in 1937.
[NY Times April 8. 1973]
Union Square area
[Ginny McGrath asked why Brownie's wasn't mentioned in The Dairy Restaurant. Although I remember remember Brownie’s very well, I thought of it as a health-food restaurant (one of many during the first half of the 20th c.) with not enough connections to Eastern-European dairy cuisine or Yiddish culture to warrant an entry in the book. I may have been wrong in that decision. I see that the obit describes it as a “dairy restaurant." I'd like to see a menu.]
Brownie's Creative Cookery, 19-21 East 16th Street, Manhattan (in operation c.1940–1985)
Operated by Samuel Brown [1917–1993] and his wife Edith. "Featured veal-style soya meat breaded with sesame seeds, wheat germ, soybean power and a little basil and other herbs." Featured Colonial-decor, served 600 to 800 lunches and dinners a day. Other dishes: eggplant steak, pseudo-Chicken Chow Mein, Chilli No Carne, lentils and mung beans Provencale and ravioli or lasagna made with ricotta and vegetable "bacon." Drinks included Tiger's milk flips, spinach "grasshoppers" and unfermented wines. In 1973, a three-course lunch was $2.75; diner $6.95. Mr. Brown was described as "a trim man with a flare of silver hair around his bald head and a twinkle behind his steel-rimmed aviator glasses." Regular customers included Danny Kay, Robert Cummings, Madge Evans and her husband Sidney Kingsley, Andy Warhol's crowd (cottage cheese, watercress and tomato sandwiches) and the Eric Hawkins dance company. Brown started working afterschool in a health food store and was "turned off" to meat by Upton Sinclair's novel and became a strict vegetarian between the ages of 14 to 19. The couple ate meat about twice a week. Brownie's was described as a "dairy restaurant with health food overtones." Brown opened his first health food store in the Union Square area in 1937.
[NY Times April 8. 1973]