Local History: The Menu
Dinner at the Lafayette Hotel, June 1946. While we're over 75 years too late to get a table, still we can know a bit about what they had and the prices they paid.
In the 1940s, the Lafayette was one of Central Kentucky's finest hotels. Built in 1920 at a cost of some $2 million, it had electric lighting, bathrooms with "modern plumbing fixtures" in every room, steam radiators, a bar and fine restaurant, and guests could have some peace of mind knowing that it was the city's first fire-proof hotel.
In the midst of World War II, the federal Office of Price Administration was charged with placing price ceilings on rationed goods, with many food items, particularly sugar, coffee, dairy products, oils, meats, and fats, being scarce, in high demand by the military, and thus subject to control. Because of high rates of employment and high wages, prices easily could have been higher but were capped to check inflation. In many ways it was an odd time in that people had money to spend but little to spend it on. Thus the menu reflects not just what a dinner at a fancy hotel would have been like, but also what diners would have paid under price controls and life during wartime.
Note that the menu's prices are "at or below the ceiling prices" set April 4-10, 1943, which reflects that prices for food, among many other items, had to be approved by the OPA on a regular basis.
If you can't read the small print, it shows that a chicken dinner, including navy bean soup, hearts of celery appetizer, asparagus, vegetable salad, apple pie, and a cup of coffee could be had for $1.25.
It should be understood that while white people were allowed to dine or stay as guests at the Lafayette (and the Phoenix), black people and other persons of color were categorically denied service. It wasn't until after a picket by C.O.R.E in the mid-1960s that black people were allowed to have a meal at the coffee shop in the Phoenix and were allowed to rent a room only if they were part of a group but not singly.
The hotel closed its doors to guests in the early 1960s, the building is now the home of Lexington's Government Center.
