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Posted on 10/26/2025 12:21:08 PM PDT by thecodont
In early May, Emily Waite stood in the center of the cavernous first floor of a concrete bunker of a building. She gestured widely across the expanse of the empty hall toward the barren southern wall. It was where the once and future home of the building’s historic lunch counter had been excavated, piece by piece, bolt by bolt, for restoration.
The particle-laden air of a construction site was scored by the clanging of metal rods spilling on the ground. Conversations from hard-hatted workers rose over the hum of idling power tools. Blue wires hung from the ceiling like icicles as the afternoon Central Valley sun peeked through the double doors on the west side of the otherwise hollowed-out fortress.
A ray of light cast itself upon a vintage sign propped up against a pillar. It read, “Visit Woolworth’s Luncheonette.”
Waite paused and nodded towards the sign. “We’ll get there soon,” she said.
That moment has arrived. It took years to restore the last Woolworth’s lunch counter in the U.S., located in downtown Bakersfield, along with the three-story building that houses it. And now the grand reopening of a historic icon is here.
‘There’s been a lot of tears’
Waite co-owns the building with her husband, Sherod, on behalf of their financial services business Moneywise Wealth Management. But the restoration of the Woolworth’s in Bakersfield is a project that many, even Waite, thought might never be completed. But nearly four years to the day that they closed on the downtown landmark, the building is revitalized and ready to be a symbolic, functioning space for all.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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Woolworth burgers. Yum.
Can they refuse service to democRATs due to Dept of Health regulations on vermin infestations?
Woolworths: Where you could buy dress patterns and fabric, tools and cosmetics, Parakeets and Goldfish, and have lunch too!
Why did they open with singers doing the Black National Anthem?
I remember eating at the Kmart lunch counter where my Grandma used to work. Good times.
I remember it well. For me, it was hot turkey sandwiches. Even the Chinese restaurant in downtown had hot turkey sandwiches on the menu.
I quit reading at the point it said that at the opening that some choirs from some local “black” churches sang the Black National Anthem!!!! WTH is that????
Egg salad sandwiches for me, with grape soda. Hot turkey sandwiches was for junior prom extravaganza. That’s the counter where my 2 1/2 year old niece learned to blow bubbles in her soda with a straw. It was our go-to shopping place.
In 1958, after she graduated from high school, a girl. I would get to know while drinking lunch (2 milkshakes) there, worked behind a Woolworth’s lunch counter...
Two years later (April 1960), we were married, and, after I type this, I will go downstairs and show her this article about the renovated Woolworth...
A late but happy 65th anniversary.
I’m glad buildings like that are being preserved.
And as a tribute to Bakersfield...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItru7hZqzU
In 1978 I started a job at National Bank of Detroit (now Chase) in downtown Detroit. A block north was both a Kresge and a Woolworth that both had lunch counters and carry-out hot food including fried chicken. Both locations had similar prices and quality. During the summer I often grabbed a few pieces of chicken and took them to “Kennedy Square” (a concrete park) right nearby.
My first “real” job. 1974 $2.01 an hour, stockboy, after school at Woolworths in Danbury CT. Store closed at 5pm, my last duty of the day was to mop the floor in the lunch counter area. Clocked out at 5:30. Fond memories. Sadly, those opportunities don’t seem to exist for kids, in the modern era.
“Egg salad sandwiches for me,”
For me gilled cheese sandwich, half sliced dill pickle and ice tea with lots of sugar.
Don’t do the tea anymore.
Was just about the cheapest thing they had.
The Smithsonian has one, split in half for two museums.
Knickknacks for nana’s china cabinet were 10 cents each for china ballerinas or gremlins in yellow suits for mother’s dresser. Still have them in my toy chest in the attic. All the store was missing were puppies.
The story is trying to connect Bakersfield, California history with Greensboro, North Carolina history (circa 1960).
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/educate/lunch.html
“Fountain lunch” and drugstore soda fountains used to be so common in various American towns, and they started disappearing in the 1970s, as I recall.
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