Agreed. San Jacinto Inn used to give you all the boiled shrimp and oysters on the half shell you could eat before your entree arrived. Monument Inn doesn't do this. Monument Inn's food is pretty average. I don't think their food is as good as the San Jacinto Inn's food was.
Same style does not necessarily equal same quality. Dont get me wrong, I do like Monument Inn, but they suffer by comparison to San Jac Inn. and you dont have to tell me Texas history hoss, I grew up in the Birthplace of Texas. As much as people here and west of 59 like to deride and insult the Pasadena\Deer Park area(my stomping grounds)...that *is* where the State of Texas was Won.
The Inn represents old Texas, before malls and chain restaurants. For better or worse, it was where Blue Hairs ate, very White, very Protestant, popular with the WW2 generation, considered a notch or two above your local cafeteria (another type of eating experience that is vanishing). Back in the 70s, their parking lot would be full of station wagons and Fords, and the women all wore dresses bought from Wards and JC Penney. If you're looking for a similar experience, http://www.texasbob.com/eats/tbe_blessing.html
Repped for linking to TexasBob.com. Its a GREAT website..I used to use it all the time when looking for High School stadiums for my last job.
The same menu we had in the early 60's but I don't know what my Dad paid when he took us. Steak dinner for 40 cents? By Leon Hale December 7, 2012 One of the customers, Virgil Ragland of Sugar Land, sent me a One's A Meal menu from 1938. At that time you could buy a "steak plate" at those Houston sandwich shops for 40 cents. On the plate you got a grilled tenderloin with tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes and bread. If you wanted coffee or tea you paid a nickel extra. That steak is the most expensive item on the menu. The next most expensive entry, scrambled eggs and chili, sold for 35 cents. All double-decker sandwiches were 25 cents. Single-deckers were 20 cents. A piece of pie or a bowl of ice cream, a dime. This was when Houston One's A Meals were owned by Brooks System Sandwich Shops. Back when I was doing the column several times a week, the customers were always sending me old menus such as this. Or grocery ads out of old newspapers, showing what food cost years ago. It was like readers were saying, "Look at these wonderful bargains we got in those days." Here's another old menu, sent by Joyce Masterson of Richmond. She says it's from San Jacinto Inn in either 1941 or '42. The Inn, near the San Jacinto Battleground, was an eat-all-you-can place, and it was plenty popular. Assuming Joyce Masterson's dates are right, you could walk into that place in the early '40s and feast on the following for $2: Shrimp cocktail. Iced crabs. Fried crabs. Baked crabs. Tenderloin of trout or redfish. Fried chicken. French fries. Olives. Celery. Hot biscuits. Strawberry and blackberry preserves. Drink and dessert. (Understand you didn't choose from those items. You got them all, from cocktail to dessert.) That was the summer menu. In winter, oysters took the place of crabs. Price stayed the same - two bucks a head and pitch till you win. Every now and then you can still hear a veteran San Jacinto Inn fan talking about the good old days, when we could go down there and "eat all you could hold for two or three bucks." But what these old menu numbers show, more than anything else, is what's happened to the value of our dollar. On the Internet, I found something called the Inflation Calculator. It tells me that if I paid $2 to overeat at San Jacinto Inn in 1941, it would cost me $30 and change to eat the same feast now. Today would you pay 30 bucks for that banquet described above? You might not. If you also were feeding a spouse and three kids, you'd be spending $150. So, was San Jac Inn really a bargain? Maybe it was more of a big deal. A special night out. In 1938, when One's A Meal was serving tenderloins for 40 cents, I was in high school and hadn't seen Houston yet. If I had come here for a visit and gone in a One's A Meal, I promise you I wouldn't have ordered a 40-cent steak. More likely I'd have eaten the peanut butter sandwich, on the menu for 15 cents. I don't mean to say there were no bargains, during those Hard Times. Some were such bargains they sound ridiculous now. In '38 and '39 I had part-time work, for 20 cents an hour, as a soda jerk in the drugstore back in my little hometown. (I may have told this before. If I did, never mind. I count it an important story, significant in the history of the times I once knew.) An ordinary Saturday morning. Two high school girls park in front of the drugstore and honk for curb service. I'm on duty behind the soda fountain. I wipe my hands on my apron and go out to the car to take the girls' order. They both want cherry cokes. I go back in the store and make the drinks. Put them on a tray along with two glasses of ice water and a pair of paper napkins and straws. Carry the tray out to the car. Attach it to the door and hope it doesn't fall off. The girls sit and sip and talk for half an hour. Then they honk again. For the third time I go out, to retrieve the tray and collect for the drinks. Ten cents, for two cherry cokes. They pay with a quarter. I go back in with the tray. Ring up a dime on the cash register. I go back out again, to deliver the 15 cents change. Four trips out to the car, to put 10 cents in the drugstore's cash register. In a day's work, I might repeat that performance a dozen times. A tip? No. At that time, the news about tipping had not yet reached our town.
