Garvie’s Restaurant

By Carol Webb

Garvie’s was located next door to the Miller Theater in the 100 block of N. Broadway and, at the time I worked there, had been operating in that location for many years. In fact, Garvie’s shared the same building as the Miller. I believe that Miss Garvie had previously been in partnership with Droll’s, which was located just west of Hillside on Central. Prior to that, she had been in charge of the cafeteria at East High School. When I taught at East High, one of the oldest teachers there gave me Miss Garvie’s recipe for banana pie, and it was just as tasty as I remembered…

From 1955 to 1957—my junior and senior years of high school—I waited tables six evenings a week from 5 o’clock till 8. Owned and operated by Anna Mae Garvie, her restaurant served the kind of American food that is no longer available anywhere that I know of. Miss Garvie, as we called her, had a degree from Kansas State University, and I suppose her university training had a great deal to do with the wonderful food served there. Every day, she stood in the kitchen on the opposite side of the steam table and watched every plate that went out of that kitchen. If it didn’t look right, she stopped it and wiped a spill or whatever needed to be done to make it look like a plate that she could be proud of serving. She was shy and soft-spoken though, and hardly ever left the kitchen.

The operation of Garvie’s was definitely old-school. Everyone had a specific job to do, and most of the employees had been working there for years. In addition to Wayne, the fry cook, and a woman behind the steam table (whose name I have long forgotten), Mary was in charge of prime rib and fried chicken—nothing else. Every day, she fried chicken the old-fashioned way, in just a small amount of grease—probably lard—and roasted the prime rib. Ida, a small lady with snow white hair, was the salad lady. She made the dressing from scratch and put together the salads. I never noticed, but she probably washed the lettuce and did all the other preparation that was needed for salads. She was also in charge of shrimp cocktail, and she made her own sauce, which was a far cry from the bottles labeled “Shrimp Cocktail Sauce” that one finds in the grocery story today. I used to tease her every night, and she occasionally slipped me a shrimp under my salad. Rosie, a black woman, was in charge of iced tea and mashed potatoes. Some women that I never saw came in every morning about 2:00 A.M. and made dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls, as well as pies and cakes. They made all those wonderful baked goods in the basement. Every dinner was served with both a braided dinner roll and a cinnamon roll. The dinner rolls that were left over each night, were sliced thin and reheated in a slow oven to make Melba toast, which was served with soups and salads as a first course. The menu changed every day, but we always had fried chicken ($1.45), prime rib ($1.75), K.C. sirloins $2.25 (listed as club steaks), and T-bones ($2.50). Pot roast (1.45), baked steak ($1.45), spaghetti ($1.25), Salisbury steak ($1.25), chicken à la king ($1.45), creamed sweet breads ($1.35) and baked halibut ($1.45) were among the other offerings that rotated.

Garvie’s opened Monday through Saturday at 11:00 as a buffeteria, which is to say that patrons, mostly folks who worked downtown, ordered the lunch that they wanted at the head of the line, and then passed along the counter to pick up an extra salad or dessert, picking up their order at the end of the line.. At 2:00, the buffeteria closed and became a counter with a soda fountain behind and individual stools, and from 2:00 to 5:00, drinks, sandwiches, and desserts were available—both at the counter or at the tables. From 5:00 to 8:00 was the dinner hour, and night after night, we saw some of the same people. Bucks of Buck’s Department Store, the Duckworths of Duckworth’s Five and Dime Store, the Atchisons of McCormick-Armstrong, and many others whose names I have forgotten, were there several nights each week.

The basement lay under Garvie’s as well as the Miller Theater, and the scene of a lot of activity. An artist’s studio was shared by Blackbear Bosin and Waddy Wadsworth, the artist who did the posters for the Miller. The door to their studio was connected to the area where we ate dinner after closing time, and we were free to wander in from time to time. The dressing rooms were also in the basement—one for the white female waitresses, one for the two white men who worked behind the counter, one for the black girls who bussed tables over the lunch hour, and one for the black dishwashers who were often young men just past high school age. All the waitresses and bus girls wore light gray cotton uniforms with starched white cotton aprons. We were issued a clean uniform once each week, more often if it was noticeably dirty from a spill, and a clean apron every night. The laundry was probably sent out, but the ironing was also done in the basement, and once a year, Miss Garvie’s sister came and spent a week mending the uniforms. We were also issued a clean side towel every day, which we carried folded neatly on our left arm.

My love of good food was probably inspired by the food that I served to the patrons of Garvie’s during the dinner hour and to myself after closing time every evening. Among the plates that we could have were fried chicken wings and backs with mashed potatoes and cream gravy, meatloaf, Salisbury steak, and sweet breads, all the vegetables, salad, and bread that we wanted, as well as a dessert. I ate hearty every evening, and learned to like some food that that I had never tasted at home. I might add, however, that the experience made me a bit of a food snob. Few restaurants have ever measured up to Garvie’s standards.