Paulais Café—"Where Filmland Will Fill Its Sweet Tooth" (Los Angeles Times, October 8, 1924) |
| Movies—and factory town efficiency—dictated service, menu, and even footpaths at Paulais Café next to Grauman's Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard in the 1920s. From 11 AM until 9 PM, Paulais hustled up "table d'hôte" meals—fixed price, pre-assembled meals for moviegoers. |
| Movie culture permeated everything. The "Iron Horse" was the western movie playing next door at the Egyptian. Atop the fountain service menu, the "Iron Horse" was a special (40¢) ice cream sundae. Down Hollywood Boulevard at the Hollywood Bookstore, you could purchase the "Iron Horse" novelized. The William Fox Studios—two miles away—produced and released the movie. |
| It was Friday, March 13, 1925. Movie star Gloria Swanson, rumored dead from acute peritonitis, strode healthily away from a hospital near Paris on March 6th. Publication date for Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was three weeks in the future. At Paulais, movie patrons massed shoulder-to-shoulder at the long counter where "water containers, dishes, napkins and silverware are placed close together, requiring no steps for the waitress and eliminating delay in service." |