| Lawry's The Prime Rib | |
|---|---|
Lawry's restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California |
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| Restaurant information | |
| Established | 1938 |
| Current owner(s) | Lawry's Restaurants |
| Head chef | Walter Eckstein |
| Food type | American, gourmet, prime rib |
| Dress code | Smart casual[1] |
| Street address | La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Hills |
| City | Los Angeles |
| State | California |
| Country | United States |
| Website | http://www.lawrysonline.com/ |
Lawry's The Prime Rib (pronounced /ˈlaʊriːz/) is a high-end, gourmet restaurant chain. The original location on Restaurant Row on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California, was founded by Lawrence L. Frank and Walter Van de Kamp and opened in 1938. It is still operated by the Frank and Van de Kamp families.
For many years, Lawry's, which can be described as a carvery, was unique among restaurants in having but a single entrée (or main course) on its menu, standing rib roast. It now serves a few additional entrées (namely vegetarian specials and lobster tails), but is still generally considered to be a roast beef restaurant. The roast beef at the restaurant is served from a large silver cart pushed from table to table, where the meat is then carved to order.
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Along with roasted prime ribs of beef, the restaurant is known for its Yorkshire pudding and signature "spinning salad."[2] A 1953 menu from Lawry's claims that it was also "the first to feature a green salad as an integral part of every meal." The salad, which was introduced by the founders when the restaurant opened in 1938,[2] is prepared tableside by a server who spins a large metal bowl of greens atop a bed of ice. This theatrical showmanship was imitated by other restaurants, notably the Blackhawk restaurant in Chicago.[2]
In 1938, Lawry's began marketing its seasoned salt in retail stores. This was the beginning of a food products empire that now sells many kinds of seasonings and flavorings under the Lawry's name. These products were sold to Lipton/Unilever in 1979 but were sold to McCormick & Company in July 2008.[3]
In 1947 Lawry's moved from its original location on La Cienega to the other side of the street and a few blocks further south, to a larger, mostly windowless, strikingly modernistic building designed by Wayne McAllister. In 1993 it moved back to a new building on the original site. McAllister's building is now occupied by The Stinking Rose, a famous garlic-themed Italian restaurant.
In 1956, just prior to the playing of the 1957 Rose Bowl Game between the Oregon State Beavers and the Iowa Hawkeyes, Lawry's entertained the two competing teams. The Beavers were fed at the Beverly Hills restaurant and the Hawkeyes were fed on the Pasadena City College football field following their practice. This started an annual tradition of hosting both Rose Bowl-bound teams for a prime rib dinner, although following the inaugural event with Iowa, the Big Ten teams were served outside Rose Bowl Stadium from 1957-1962. By 1963, when Illinois and Washington both dined at the restaurant on separate nights prior to the 1964 Rose Bowl Game, the two team events had become known as "Lawry's Beef Bowl." A book chronicling the last 50 years of the Rose Bowl Game and the first 50 years of Lawry's Beef Bowl, "Road to the Rose Bowl," was written by Todd Erickson and published in 2005 by Silverback Books (San Francisco). Featuring a foreword by ABC Sports broadcaster Keith Jackson, it has more than 450 photos and recollections from both Rose Bowl players and coaches of the past 50 years.
In 1974, Lawry's opened its second location, in Chicago's River North district.[2] Additional locations were opened in Dallas in 1983 and Las Vegas in 1997. Internationally, Lawry's opened restaurants in Jakarta in 1996, Singapore in 1999, Tokyo in April, 2001, Taipei in 2002, Hong Kong in 2006, and Shanghai & Osaka in 2008. [4] [5] [6]
A similar restaurant in San Francisco, The House of Prime Rib on Van Ness Avenue, is sometimes erroneously claimed to have predated Lawry's. The House of Prime Rib, however, did not open until 1949.[7]