Dinner at Isabel’s in 1944
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder

  The prices on a 1944 menu from Isabel’s Tavern at 280 West Main Street in Amsterdam are eye-opening.

If you and companion (as food writers say) dined at Isabel’s in 1944, you could have had shrimp cocktail as an appetizer for 35 cents each. Fancy filet mignon with fresh mushrooms cost $1.75 per person, served with spaghetti or French fries plus two vegetables. You could have had a Manhattan before dinner for 35 cents and perhaps companion would have enjoyed a Courvoisier after dinner for 60 cents. The total bill, not including tip, would have been $5.15 for dinner for two. That would be worth over $90 today.

Isabel’s offered less expensive fare in 1944. You and companion could have dined on one of the Italian specialties, spaghetti and meatballs, for 50 cents each. You could have split an Italian Combination salad for 50 cents. Each of you could have had a 15-cent glass of burgundy for a total bill of $1.80 for dinner for two.

For a light meal, you could have considered two Western egg sandwiches, each costing 20 cents.

As this was wartime, the federal Office of Price Administration or OPA controlled Isabel’s prices. This federal agency regulated prices and rationed meat, gasoline and other items during World War II.

The Isabel’s menu states, “All prices are our ceiling prices or below. By OPA regulations, our ceilings are based on our highest prices from April 4 to 10, 1943. Our menus are available for your inspection.”

Amsterdam historian Hugh Donlon in his “Annals of a Mill Town” noted that affluent people were able to lessen the impact of wartime meat rationing by dining at Isabel’s and other restaurants.

The OPA distributed a controlled number of red stamps to each family allowing meat purchases.

Donlon said, “Unlike the original rationing in Europe, the U.S. restaurants did not require red stamps from dining patrons and as a result the more affluent were eating out, enjoying meats of higher grade while saving the red stamps issued for home supply. Both money and proper connections helped to ease inconveniences.”

Isabel’s 1944 menu also advertised its facilities for weddings and special parties and would take reservations by telephone at 2490.

The 1944 menu was “snitched” from Isabel’s by Ray Goldstein according to Phyllis Byron of Watervliet, who sent the document.

Local radio station, TV cable owner, and elected government official Joseph Isabel died in 2022. He said some years ago that the family restaurant was started by his grandfather, also named Joseph Isabel, in 1929. Isabel’s parents, Guy and Ida, became sole operators in the 1940s.

“My mom was born here and my dad came here from Pisciotta, Italy,” Isabel said. “He started out as a barber. My uncle Alex Isabel was Recreation Commissioner, Hector worked for Mohasco and Nunzio sold autos.

“My mom and dad were great cooks. He cut all of his own steaks and had a showcase in the dining room where you could pick out your own steaks.

“After my dad died in the early 1970s, my uncle Lou Frollo, Jerry (Pup) Isabel, Mike Aldi and my sister Mildred and her late husband Bill Buono assisted my mother. It was a real family operation.

“My mom sold the restaurant to Mike Aldi in the early 1980s. Mike worked for them as a part time cook and was like family to my dad. Mike also ran Aldi’s TV on the South Side. He ran the restaurant until he had a heart attack in the early 1990s. After that, it changed hands a few times before it
closed.”

Bob Cudmore is a free lance writer. [email protected]

518 346 6657