BRONX SCENE
Bickford’s Cafeteria was a popular meeting place
REPRINTED FROM 10-7-2010
Bickford’s was captured on fi lm with the V Trolley facing west and getting
ready to pull out of West Farms Square in Decenber of 1942. The white tile
facade always set the Bickford’s apart from other eating establishments.
This one was located at 1065 E. Tremont Avenue east of Boston Road.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J BTR UNE 28-JULY 4, 2019 63
I was speaking with Bart
Fitzsimons and we were discussing
West Farms when the
subject got around to Bickford’s.
When Bart was a bus
driver, that’s where he often
stopped for breakfast, lunch,
or just coffee and cake and to
meet up with other drivers. It
was cafeteria-style, clean, and
the prices were reasonable. It
was located on the north side
of East Tremont Avenue east
of Boston Road and became a
favorite haunt of bus drivers
since West Farms Square was
a major transportation hub.
That same week, Joe Gannon
a retired police offi cer
showed me a story about another
retired cop who served
in the South Bronx. His name
was Vincent O’Donnel and he
also served in the Marines
during the Korean War. When
he was a young man playing
baseball for the Chippewa
Democratic Club, he worked at
Bickford’s as a night manager
while still in his teens. After
leaving the NYPD, he taught
history and Spanish at All
Hallows High School before fi -
nally retiring to Florida.
It seems that everyone I
talk to has remembrances of
Bickford’s and they all seem to
be pleasant memories. There
were fi ve Bickford’s cafeterias
in the Bronx and they all
looked the same with their
white terra cotta facades. I recall
the one at 1065 East Tremont
Avenue where Bart and the
bus drivers ate. I often stopped
there when going to the Bronx
Zoo. The other Bronx locations
were 517 East Tremont
Avenue, 390 East Fordham
Road, 2435 Grand Concourse,
and 534 Willis Avenue.
The chain was established
by Samuel Longley Bickford
in 1921 and F. Russell Stuckert
was his architect. The big sellers
were apple pie, cheesecake,
and rice pudding. The cafeterias
soon became a meeting
place for varied groups of
friends and writers began citing
them in their stories.
Andy Warhol, Woody Allen,
Allen Ginsberg, William
Styron, Herbert Huncke and
Jack Kerouac all had something
to say about Bickford’s.
Kerouac, who also did some
of his writing there, mentions
them in his “Lonesome Traveler.”
Wally Wood, the Mad
cartoonist, was a busboy at a
Manhattan Bickford’s in 1948,
There were forty-eight of the
cafeterias in New York in 1960
and by 1980 only two were left
and they managed to survive
until 1982. Other cities fared
better and Bickford’s are still
around and quite popular under
names such as Bickford’s
Pancake House and Bickfords
(without the apostrophe)
Grill.
They are headquartered
in Boston and quite popular
throughout New England and
elsewhere. They’re just not
back in New York City, at least
not yet, but you never know.
Chock Full o’ Nuts, which
also closed down in the 1980s,
just returned to the city with
a new store carrying some
former popular menu choices
such as the date nut bread with
cream cheese. It’s located on
23rd Street between Fifth and
Sixth Avenues and just opened
on September 13. Maybe Bickford’s
will be next.