Customer Reviews

When Everybody Ate at Schrafft's: Memories, Pictures, and Recipes from a Very Special Restaurant Empire

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This must be the first and most comprehensive collection of Schrafft's memorabilia to date. Joan Slomanson has collected quotes, recipes, images and memories from a varied list of celebrities, former customers and employees of the many Schrafft's that were on the east coast until the mid-seventies. It's surprising that there are not more photos of the Schrafft's 'stores' that dotted the streets of NY,Boston etc, ecspecially the interiors. This book is a sweet valentine to another era that should appeal to the anyone interested in food and a genteel lifestyle.

Although I don't have much of a personal history with Schrafft's,

it was such a part of the life of the times it feels as though I was

a regular customer. Joan Slomanson has so captured the atmosphere of the

period and I can't help but feel nostalgic for such a less

complicated time. I know there are wonderful things today,

though they are buried in a lot of not so wonderful things, alas,

and we can't become what we once were, but how delightful it

was to spend the afternoon in the sincerity, innocence,

dependability, honesty and charm of a little corner of the past -

with some great comfort food recipes to try later! It deserves

to be a great success!

Page 147.... I stopped and stared at that picture of Schrafft's Fordham Road "Bread" window (I believe the opposite window had Peanut Brittle in it) the same way I would physically stop and eat it all in with my eyes, back in the 1950's, when I was growing up in the Bronx.

Mom Sylvia LOVED their Shadow layer cake and their WONDERFUL coffee -- We would eat there at least once a week (amazing, since our income level was not even considered middle class, back then) -- Mom would bring us kiddies there -- right after church on Saturday (Our Lady of Mt Carmel) OR right after another one of thse agonizing shopping trips to Alexander's ("Ma!! Hurry Up!! ..... Ma!!!They don't even have a TOY department here!!!!")

Schrafft's was truly a hallowed place. Their food was exceptional. Their ice cream was out of this world. I remember many times going in for Breakfast with Mom Sylvia and Sis, and asking Bill (the handsome guy who worked the counter at Fordham Road) "What's the Cake of the Day?!" And he would smile, call down the dumbwaiter and in seconds, a thoroughly confused bakery attendant ("They want WHAT for breakfast?!") would slide a layer cake into the dumbwaiter's gleaming, waiting tray, and the morning's first layer cake would appear, gliding up from the bakery below - and Ma, Sis and I would have cake for breakfast.

As the book makes quite clear -- Schrafft's cakes were glorious -- nectar and ambrosia -- and the best cake of them all was their Shadow Layer Cake -- oh I WISH you had put that recipe in this book!! -- (Or if it IS there then I haven't found it yet). Shadow Layer Cake was the ONLY thing that could calm down not only my stentorian, strident, 5'1" warrior-mother Sylvia, but also her equally formidable friend Dolly - when those two were sitting at the kitchen table, slowly devouring a whole Shadow layer Cake, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes in their stylishly long (this was the 1950's, remember) cigarette holders, us little kids knew that PEACE would reign until the whole cake was devoured.

Sitting at Schrafft's counter was fun -- sitting at the tables at Schrafft's was a European experience -- you were waited on hand and foot, and all the little kids were prodded to mind their manners.

And of course, we'd always bring "something Schrafft's" home to eat, in a white box, all tied up in string, and carried like it was the relic of a saint. Sometimes it would be Mom's Food-of-the-Gods -- Shadow Layer Cake -- other times, "just" cookies, much to Nonna Lucia's consternation (granny lived with us) -- she'd be up to her elbows in dough, making Italian Wedding cookies or italian Wine cookies and we'd waltz in the door bearing sweets from Schrafft's -- LOL!!

Recipes, images of old menus (oh.... what memories they evoke!), cartoons, stories and anecdotes are liberally sprinkled throughout this book. Wonderful! Wonderful!!!

This book is small but mighty -- well-written, with a tribute from Frank G, Shattuck himself (I knew that name as well as I knew my own name, by the time iI was 5 years old) has great recipes, exceptional nostalgia, and makes me long for those days when you could find a Schrafft's everywhere in Manhattan and in my neighborhood in the Bronx as well.

It gladdens my heart to know that I can bring a little bit of Schrafft's back into my home, with all those wonderful mouth-watering recipes liberally sprinkled throughout this book.

Like stars in the night sky slowly being extinguished one by one after a beautiful night's dream, Schrafft's beautiful restaurants started closing down, one by one. The one on Fordham Road was still there in the early 60's -- after that, I know not when it shuttered its doors.

However, there were still one or two Schrafft's left in Manhattan -- I remember keeping a copy of my bill until it faded, from one Schrafft's that I happily dined in, in the early or mid 80's.

Maybe one day.....there will be a Schrafft's revival??? I can dream. You can call me a (Schrafft's) dreamer -- but (maybe) I'm not the only one.....!

Thank you for a book well-written, with lots of love and memories on every page. ALL my friends from the Bronx are going to hear about this one!!

BTW -- Page 107 brought me some unexpected joy. Thank you.

PS -- Did you Know-- there was also a Schrafft's in (Laurel) Maryland, on the Baltimore Washington Parkway in the 60's -- as a heartbroken Bronx kid who had to move from New York to live in Virginia -- it eased my broken NY heart when I saw it as we were enroute from NY to Virginia, and I dined several times in that Maryland Schrafft's -- no it was NOT New York, but the fact that there WAS a Schrafft's not far from me was a great comfort to this very homesick kid. That restaurant closed some time in the 70's, I think.

Tuna sandwich on toasted cheese bread, hot fudge over vanilla ice cream (and the agony of deciding whether I should choose hot butterscotch), out on a teenage date with my Irish boyfriend. Schrafft's has special memories for so many of us. I discovered this when I presented several friends with the wonderful Christmas gift of "When Everybody Ate at Schrafft's." Everybody loves to receive this treasure.

I grew up going to Schrafft's every week... It was always magical, and this book brings the magic back!

There are even recipes for my all time favorite Schrafft's specials! All in all, a charming treat for the palate, the eyes, and the memory.

My mother was the recipient of this gift and she worked in Schraft's in the 40's. She loved the book and it brought back a lot of memories and even taught her a few things she didn't know - a real task with my mother.

She recommended it for anyone who worked or ate there.

My mother worked at Schrafft's back in the 1940s and 1950s. She has always spoken fondly of the experience, but I had no personal sense of what Schrafft's was like, as it was before my time. I happened on this book and purchased it for her - she loved reading it and reminiscing, and I very much enjoyed having more information about this very special part of her life.

The book addresses Schrafft's from a fond perspective, and includes special recipes, happy tales from employees, patrons and New York locals. If you had any connection to Schrafft's, this will send you on a happy trip down memory lane.

Bring them back...Schrafft's, of course! Brings back memories of Aunt Lillian and Mary Jane shoes!

Lavishly illustrated throughout, "When Everybody Ate At Schrafft's" by Joan Kanel Slomanson is a compilation of memories, pictures, and recipes from a very special New York City based restaurant empire that grew to more than fifty establishments popular with celebrities, businessmen, and the public at large. Slomanson writes with a special expertise as a former advertising agency creative director and a friend of Schrafft's founder Frank G. Shattuck's grandson who provides files filled with exclusive information on Schrafft's -- including hundreds of previous unavailable recipes. "When Everybody Ate At Schrafft's" also includes maps of all the Schrafft's locations, including more than 50 in New York City, and the many motor inns that stretched along I-95 from New England to Florida. A welcome addition to any personal or community library cookbook collection for the recipes alone, "When Everybody Ate At Schrafft's" will also have a very special appeal for anyone who has ever dined at a Schrafft's and would appreciate the nostalgic pictures capturing the look and feel of a unique era in American restaurant history.

As a native NYer, it was an easy, fun, jogging of memory,having had lunch there many times in the 1950s,after seeing my DDS on E 57th ST or when I worked in the Chrysler building.

As a book, it was extremely "lightweight",not very well written, easy to put aside and TOO MANY RECIPES.I will,however. send it to our daughter, who had a summer job there & wore that black and white uniform and told us tales about the customers.So it was a pleasant little tome, but not one I'd recommend.Sorry !