Bertini's in 1940's

The menu I am working with is from Bertini’s, which opened in 1943 and is currently still in operation. Bertini’s is located on 285 Canal Street in Salem, Massachusetts. On Bertini’s actual website there is some history regarding the place. Charles and Esther Bertini opened Bertini’s in 1943 with the idea that it was a family style business. To this day Bertini’s is still in the family as Charles and Esther’s grandson John runs it. The menu has many distinctive choices of food that indicate that it is an Italian-American restaurant. One of the main titles is in fact Italian dishes. The meals are Italian themed yet have American words, the only actual word deriving from Italy under the Italian dishes is marinara. I believe the menu uses English over Italian because it is located in Salem and during this time not many people in Salem were Italian speakers. There are other words like mushroom, clam, and shrimp which are also all English words. Mushroom is a big ingredient on the menu, which could mean they had a surplus of that ingredient or it was very cheap to purchase. There is a dessert dish called Spumoni, which is a layered Italian ice cream. Having a dessert like spumoni shows the restaurants true Italian roots even though many of the dishes do not reflect that.

From the prices and food choices we could date the menu circa 1945. The menu could also be classified as a static menu, which is the most common type of menu. A static menu is usually separated into groups such as appetizers, soups and salads, entrees, desserts, etc. There is a minimum of .25 cents per person, which indicates that it’s a sit down restaurant instead of a bar or pub because drinks here are around .15 cents. Being that the menu is so old, it is not geared towards marketing and there are no actual signs of marketing language. There are no hints of anything being healthy or authentic but simply a hearty meal that will fill you and your family at a good price. This menu does not offer a lot of choices, which gives the restaurant room to work with what they have. To list potatoes and vegetables they use Pot. And Veg., which makes you think what kind of potatoes and vegetables am I going to get?  This type of menu is a menu where people do not expect much and are used to certain dishes and no what to expect. There are front-vowel words and back-vowel words present in my menu. A front-vowel word used in my menu was small when talking about “small sirloin steak” some back-vowel words were jumbo when used to describe a “Baked stuffed Jumbo shrimp platter” and “jumbo shrimp cacciatore en casserole.” I think the ideas and hopes of being a family restaurant came true and is reflectled through their successes.