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19th-century restaurants and cafes
I hope to add some information here about restaurants and cafes in the late 19th century here when I have it. Meanwhile, just a few observations. Many of the restaurants seem to have served alcoholic drinks. One ad offers free lunches to go with the drinks. Thus many restaurants seem to have been a combination of restaurant and saloon, whereas many saloons weren't necessarily also restaurants. Another thing I've noticed is the popularity of oysters, which is interesting for several reasons, but to me most of all because Freeland is not a seaside resort and oysters don't stay fresh for very long.
Note that addresses in these 19th-century Freeland directories are in an older numbering scheme and don't match today's addresses. In the old scheme, looking at Centre Street as an example, numbers began at the corner of Front and Centre Streets and went up as you went north, and went up again as you went south, so if an address was 24 Centre St., it would say N or S Centre to indicate whether it was 24 Centre St. above Front St. or 24 Centre St. below it. Ditto east and west of Centre Street. The 1912 Sanborn map shows both the old and the new numbering, giving an approximate idea of when the transition from one scheme to another took place.
At left is a photo
that I believe shows the Depierro
Restaurant, listed in the 1886-1888 directory at 56 S. Ridge St. (later
renumbered 520 Ridge St.). In 1895 it was listed as being run by
Michael De Pierro. This was later the site of Procopio's. Thanks to
Charlie Gallagher for spending some time trying to figure out if the
building shown at left is still somewhere on that block. The current
building's roof pitch does not match that shown at left, but the
location is the same and so my guess is that the Depierro building was
replaced with a newer building.
In the 1895 directory that restaurant is still on Ridge St.,
and Salvatore and Rocco F. De Pierro had their DePierro Bros.
Restaurant on the corner of Front and Centre Streets, shown at right.
That was later the site of the First National Bank. In
the photo at right the restaurant is next to a building called Freeland
Hall,
which has Joseph Neuberger's store on its first floor, space for
meetings upstairs, and I'm not sure yet what else. Both photos came
from John Zubach.
At left is Adam Sachs'
Restaurant. He is shown standing on the porch,
holding a small child. From the 1882-1884 city directory up through
that of 1900-1901, this restaurant/saloon is listed at 5 Front Street,
which is just a few buildings east of Centre Street, a prime location.
I have no directories after that until 1921-1922, so I don't know when
the restaurant/saloon went out of business. Likewise, I have not seen
any directories earlier than that of 1882-1884, so I don't know when
the business was started. The photo was provided by Fred Sachs.