Found Kodachrome Photos of A Drive To El Camino, California in July 1970

 

What we know about Gordon Hollier, we know from his pictures. Thanks to collector Thomas Hawk, we know that Hollier travelled throughout California, took trips to New York and Washington DC, and flew oversweas to the UK, Germany, France and Italy.

Many of his photos focus on El Camino, Palo Alto, in July 1970, which Hollier seems to have arrived at by car, given that his pictures focus on gas stations, motels and roadside eateries selling prime rib, cocktails, broiled steak sandwiches and more at Dinah’s Shack.

So let’s leave the mist an rain behind and head to the sun…

 

Bob Emerson has a few words about Dinah’s Shack, now Dinah’s Poolside restaurant:

“In 1926, during a horse and buggy ride down El Camino Real, the old State Highway, Charles McMonagle and his wife Hazel saw an old ramshackle structure. According to legend, Hazel cried out, “It’s Dinah’s Shack!” – the home of the beloved black woman who had cared for her in her Kansas childhood.

“The McMonagles decided to buy the shack and turn it into a roadside carry-out restaurant catering to the many highway travellers on their way back and forth from San Francisco. They also purchased a 20-acre farm across the street where they grew the produce used in the restaurant..

“Dinah’s Shack featured the cuisine of the South, largely African-American influenced – Southern-fried spring chicken on toast, biscuits and honey, waffle potatoes – as well as musical acts such as Lou Foote and his Two Toes.

Between the 1920s and 1950s, Dinah’s became a nationally famous stop along the old highway, known for “authentic southern hospitality,” as well as for being a favourite hangout for better-off Stanford students like John F. Kennedy, who was attending the business school in the fall of 1940. By that time, the McMonagles had introduced a kind of salad bar of hors-d’oeuvres representing the cuisines of different states and regions of the country in which they often travelled to research local foods….

 

“And when the entire restaurant, save the chimney, burned down in May 1942, the McMonagles managed to reopen within 48 hours in another shack — perhaps not quite like Dinah’s, but still on the property lot. Eight years later, they sold to John Rickey, the hotel owner and restaurateur who owned Rickey’s Garden Hotel down the street.

“Rickey brought a new layer of food and culture to the now 20-year-old restaurant. The so-called Continental cuisine was featured in a “smorgasbord” which now took on a Scandinavian influence. While Dinah’s down-home cooking remained, it now shared the menu with Roast Duck L’Orange, Veal Cordon Bleu, and Salmon Dijonais – not to mention some 40 other smorgasbord appetizers, including rarities like marinated pig’s feet and pickled herring.”

 

Via: Thomas Hawk on Flickr