DON’T let the glassy exterior of the building on the NE corner of Lexington Avenue and East 45th fool you…this building, now home to Midtown Comics on the second floor, was once an Art Deco palace home to a Bickford’s restaurant. Like Child’s, Bickford’s was once a chain restaurant with dozens of locations in the NYC area.
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 2020 only two Bickford’s remain open in Burlington and Woburn, Massachusetts. The one on Fltbush and Atlantic Avenues, however, remained in existence at least into the 1960s and I even seem to remember passing it on bus rides while I was attending high school nearby in the early 1970s.
The Bickford’s in the link above sat on 8th Avenue north of West 34th for decades after it closed, but it recently met a wrecking ball.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop. As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
5/8/25
3 comments
Was Bickford’s a cafeteria like Garfield’s’ Cafeteria located at Church and Flatbush Ave ?
Yes, my recollection is that Bickford’s were cafeterias, like Garfield and Dubrow’s. Did not have waiter/waitress service.
Another NYC-founded restaurant chain, TGI Friday’s, is in rough shape. It’s gone from several hundred restaurants in the US to fewer than 100 and is operating under bankruptcy protection.