A History of Menus Is a Menu of History

A dusty archive of restaurant menus from 1880 to 1920 somehow turned into a tiny internet variety show. The actual story is charming enough: the New York Public Library has Frank E. Buttolph’s collection of old menus, a paper trail of how Americans ate, dined out, and showed off in the years when modern restaurant culture was taking shape. It’s part food history, part social history, and part reminder that people have always loved reading what other people order.

But the comments? That’s where the flavor is. One camp was fully enchanted, calling it “very cool” and “amazing to travel in time with style,” basically treating the archive like a time machine with table service. Another group immediately ran into the classic old-menu problem: what on earth are these dishes? One commenter flat-out said the whole thing would be more fun if they actually knew what the menu items meant, which feels like the most relatable reaction possible when history starts sounding like a wizard cookbook.

And then came the joke that stole the thread: how many people clicked expecting computer menus instead of dinner menus? It’s the kind of nerdy bait-and-switch that turned a polite history post into a mini punchline. The biggest scene-stealer, though, was a commenter bringing up Colonial Williamsburg’s King’s Arms Tavern, where the menu still reads like an 18th-century spellbook: “Firstly...” “Lastly...” Suddenly everyone wasn’t just reading history — they were imagining soup with instructions longer than the meal itself.