Creator
Rector's
Title
À la carte
Coverage
New York City
Date
ca. 1917
Description
Rector’s pioneered a flamboyant style, serving rich, calorific dishes in gilded surroundings. Such restaurants in the new entertainment district around Times Square became known as “lobster palaces.” In the early teens, they were radically enlarged and refurbished in imaginative ways and began to offer entertainment. Earl Fuller’s Jazz Band played at Rector’s in 1916, a few months before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made its acclaimed debut at Reisenweber’s. Not long after ushering in the Jazz Age, the newly-established cabarets closed as wartime Prohibition went into effect.