Across the street from The Flatbush Reformed Church and cemetery, and two doors down from historic Erasmus Hall High School, another chapter in Brooklyn history has been temporarily revealed at Flatbush and Church Avenues. A beautiful terra cotta Bickford’s restaurant facade has been revealed by the removal of a Liberty Income Tax storefront sign.
Bickford’s was a restaurant chain once dominant in the NYC area founded by Samuel Longley Bickford (1885-1959). The first Bickford’s opened in 1921 and the chain eventually expanded to over 100 locations in the NYC area, New England, Florida and California,where restaurants were known as Foster’s Cafeterias.
All of NYC’s Bickford’s, however, were closed by 1982. In 2016 only four Bickford’s remain open, all in Massachusetts in Brockton, Burlington, Woburn, and Acton.
Photo: Ian Miller
9/2/16
8 comments
Is this the building where Titus Oaks record store was in the 70s?
Yes
In the 1950s I was at the Bickfords at church ave&nostrand where 2 drunks were arguing one said I’m going to lick you the other responded you can’t lick a stamp
My father Jack Rollins worked at Bickfords . I believe in the 1928 or 1929.
So neat; my grandparents met while both working at Bickford’s in the ’40s. A whole bunch of my grandfather’s fam worked there & his brother-in-law was a manager.
My father worked there as a young man……in 1934
You can see a Bickford’s next to an Esso stand in a shot with Peter Lawlor and Judy
Holiday in an MG in “It Should Happen to You” from 1954….
During the late 60s and while still in high school I frequent the Bickford cafeteria/restaurant off of Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn and enjoyed a slice of
apple pie with a cup of coffee. The closures of the Bickford cafeterias was disappointing to say the least. On the weekend if I pass by a Bickford,
I purchased an apple pie for the girl friend and family. I miss the taste of that apple pie and the flaky top. Your apple pie should be mass produce
and sold in supermarket everywhere. Just wishing, LOL