It’s weird seeing chicken as the expensive meat whereas nowadays chuck is cheap as shit because farm so many chickens..
Hows a mutton chop more than a fillet steak!
That selection of puddings is very impressive. What is cabinet pudding?
Any Scottish folks triggered by the Salmon?
Hilarious that tripe is the same price as beef
I wouldn’t mind seeing most of that on a menu for a change.
Does anybody know what a “Savoy Pudding” is?
I have looked but can’t find it, although I can find Savoy Cake.
Imagine paying 8p for a roast beef main course. Crazy times. That’s £4.50 in today’s money.
I wonder what the difference is between a baked potato and a jacket potato
Wild that in 1937 you could have Kia-Ora with your boiled tripe
Food is far worse today than 85 years ago
Roast Beef and Horseradish, Straw Potatoes, Braised Onions
Treacle Sponge and Vanilla Ice
Ginger Ale Schweppes
“Meat” and potato pie is a little vague. If it was beef, I’d have gone for that.
(Michael Palin was born in Sheffield just 6 years later. I wonder if he ever ate here.)
I’ll have the ground rice, mould and prunes please. And don’t skip on the mould.
Have to be honest, if I saw that menu today I would go in. Looks like food that fill me up and not be messed about with
Interesting that the main course section is called ‘Entrees’ which is how the US refer to it. I guess the term fell out of fashion here?
I’m currently in Sheffield for the weekend and that address is about 400m away!
Sorry I’m pregnant right now but the beef olives sounds fucking intriguing and I really want the stewed prunes. Yum.
Pretty great selection to be honest. I certainly didn’t expect to see pineapple and grapefruit being sold cheaply on a menu from almost 90 years ago.
I guess things took a downturn during/after WW2. It should serve as a reminder that the things we currently take for granted can easily disappear.
A cafe in 1937: three course meal with orchestra
A cafe in 2024: machine coffee for a fiver
How did they manage to offer all those dishes?!!!
Top tier pudding menu
Kia – Ora on the drinks menu, wow that is a surprise.
Can I go back in time, please, I could eat every damn day
Nice to see Charles Callum’s Orchestra still getting regular work.
Just as a rough guide for those unfamiliar with pre-decimal currency:
s = Shilling. 12 old pence. 1/20th of £1, so equal to *5 new pence.*
d = Pence (old). 12 of these to 1 Shilling, and 240 to £1. *~0.4 new pence.*
Prices marked “x/x” denote Shillings/Pence.
According to the BoE inflation calculator £1 in 1937 would be worth £56 today, making:
1d =23p
1s = £2.80
_However_ VAT wasn’t introduced until 1973, and I can’t find any mention of any sales taxes before 1940, so really we need to add 20% onto those prices, making:
1d = 28p
1s = £3.36
_However_, there was no national minimum wage back then either. Hourly wages for a labourer then, would be equivalent to only £2 – £3.80 per hour today. If we were instead to say the “minimum” wage then was ~1s per hour (some were paid more, some less) we could say 1s in 1937 is closer to £10 today! The takeaway being, although the actual prices may have been lower (1/6 = £5), if you were working class, that would still be 1.5 hours of labour (£15) and eating out was still expensive.
Didn’t know they had Kia-ora back then.
A telephone on EVERY floor you say. Swanky….
Does strike me as interesting that the place says it has 5 floors, and live music every day at lunch and dinner times… I’m going to figure this was actually a very fancy place, and fairly busy / popular if they had tables on 5 floors.
30 comments
Turtle soup and sweetbreads for me!
It’s weird seeing chicken as the expensive meat whereas nowadays chuck is cheap as shit because farm so many chickens..
Hows a mutton chop more than a fillet steak!
That selection of puddings is very impressive. What is cabinet pudding?
Any Scottish folks triggered by the Salmon?
Hilarious that tripe is the same price as beef
I wouldn’t mind seeing most of that on a menu for a change.
Does anybody know what a “Savoy Pudding” is?
I have looked but can’t find it, although I can find Savoy Cake.
Imagine paying 8p for a roast beef main course. Crazy times. That’s £4.50 in today’s money.
I wonder what the difference is between a baked potato and a jacket potato
Wild that in 1937 you could have Kia-Ora with your boiled tripe
Food is far worse today than 85 years ago
Roast Beef and Horseradish, Straw Potatoes, Braised Onions
Treacle Sponge and Vanilla Ice
Ginger Ale Schweppes
“Meat” and potato pie is a little vague. If it was beef, I’d have gone for that.
(Michael Palin was born in Sheffield just 6 years later. I wonder if he ever ate here.)
I’ll have the ground rice, mould and prunes please. And don’t skip on the mould.
Have to be honest, if I saw that menu today I would go in. Looks like food that fill me up and not be messed about with
Interesting that the main course section is called ‘Entrees’ which is how the US refer to it. I guess the term fell out of fashion here?
I’m currently in Sheffield for the weekend and that address is about 400m away!
Sorry I’m pregnant right now but the beef olives sounds fucking intriguing and I really want the stewed prunes. Yum.
Pretty great selection to be honest. I certainly didn’t expect to see pineapple and grapefruit being sold cheaply on a menu from almost 90 years ago.
I guess things took a downturn during/after WW2. It should serve as a reminder that the things we currently take for granted can easily disappear.
A cafe in 1937: three course meal with orchestra
A cafe in 2024: machine coffee for a fiver
How did they manage to offer all those dishes?!!!
Top tier pudding menu
Kia – Ora on the drinks menu, wow that is a surprise.
Can I go back in time, please, I could eat every damn day
Nice to see Charles Callum’s Orchestra still getting regular work.
Just as a rough guide for those unfamiliar with pre-decimal currency:
s = Shilling. 12 old pence. 1/20th of £1, so equal to *5 new pence.*
d = Pence (old). 12 of these to 1 Shilling, and 240 to £1. *~0.4 new pence.*
Prices marked “x/x” denote Shillings/Pence.
According to the BoE inflation calculator £1 in 1937 would be worth £56 today, making:
1d =23p
1s = £2.80
_However_ VAT wasn’t introduced until 1973, and I can’t find any mention of any sales taxes before 1940, so really we need to add 20% onto those prices, making:
1d = 28p
1s = £3.36
_However_, there was no national minimum wage back then either. Hourly wages for a labourer then, would be equivalent to only £2 – £3.80 per hour today. If we were instead to say the “minimum” wage then was ~1s per hour (some were paid more, some less) we could say 1s in 1937 is closer to £10 today! The takeaway being, although the actual prices may have been lower (1/6 = £5), if you were working class, that would still be 1.5 hours of labour (£15) and eating out was still expensive.
Didn’t know they had Kia-ora back then.
A telephone on EVERY floor you say. Swanky….
Does strike me as interesting that the place says it has 5 floors, and live music every day at lunch and dinner times… I’m going to figure this was actually a very fancy place, and fairly busy / popular if they had tables on 5 floors.
Think I’ll pass on the turtle consomme