Where Have You Gone, Starlight Cafe?: America's Golden Era Roadside Restaurants [Paperback]

Will Anderson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Anderson & Sons Pub Co (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0960105697
• ISBN-13: 978-0960105694
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Business & Investing > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > Hospitality Businesses

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars American Roadside Nostalgia at its Best!!!!!!, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Where Have You Gone, Starlight Cafe?: America's Golden Era Roadside Restaurants (Paperback)

Who says you can't go back!! Read one of the restaurant descriptions;close your eyes and there's mom and pop catering to your every need. A great era of America's bygone days straight from the actual postcards of days past as well as the memories of those who were there with their own homespun rememberances. A bonus are the top ten pie recipes from the actual restaurants! Enjoy:the book and the pies. Thanks Mr. Anderson for a job well done......I remember those times........

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, for those who love revisiting the past., April 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Where Have You Gone, Starlight Cafe?: America's Golden Era Roadside Restaurants (Paperback)

The first thing I saw in this book was Hicks Drive Inn Restaurant in surburban Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up near this restaurant have many fond memories of it. It was as wonderful as the book indicates. Next I spotted Stebbins Grill in downtown Louisville on Chestnut Street (before it was Mohammed Ali Boulevard). The author refers to it as the most upscale restaurant in the book. So upscale that I recall being able to afford only to look longingly at it from the outside! On the front cover is Pete's Cafe in Boonville, Mo, which I remember from a family vacation--one of those places advertised for miles in advance along the highway. And the pork chops were wonderful!

However, I want to tell the author that he missed the REAL Starlight Cafe--still operating, and under that name--in Terlingua, Texas (in the Big Bend area). Wonderful food--the shrimp-kabob tacos and cold beer are gifts from heaven in this beautiful remote hot and arid area. The decor is that of an ancient theatre--the original function; but it really more closely resembles a funky cave!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DINER HISTORY, June 30, 2001

By 

MOVIE MAVEN (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Where Have You Gone, Starlight Cafe?: America's Golden Era Roadside Restaurants (Paperback)

I am a sucker for diners, diner food and those great 1940's-1950's color postcards of diners all over the USA.

Part 1 of "Where Have You Gone...?" collects some of the best of those postcards in full page, full color reproductions and then explains the history of each place and its current(if still standing) location, staff, specialties, etc. Parts 2 and 3 examine, in photographs and text, the diners of today and the final entry celebrates the re-opening and re-vitalization of the Palace Diner in Biddeford, Maine, a 70 year-old dining landmark.

The text is colorful, but verges on the mundane. However, the photographs and reproductions are first rate: We'll unfortunately never again see the beauty of the Art Deco design for the Court Cafe in Albuquerque, New Mexico or the main dining room/gas station and smaller cottages that made up the Dutch Mill Village of South Glasgow, Kentucky---They were all shaped like perfect, tiny windmills. Where but at Hick's Drive In on the Dixie Highway in Louisville, Kentucky would you find a circular building, a horseshoe shaped counter and an interior constructed entirely of glass?

My personal favorite postcard is of the Victory Cafe in Mattoon, Illinois--not that it is the most glamorous, but simply because it reminds me of my childhood, Saturday lunches at Baumgart's in Hackensack, New Jersey.

When/If you go antiquing, do you wander over to the bins of yellowing postcards? Then this book is for you.