{"id":246481,"date":"2025-05-19T01:06:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/the-last-operating-woolworths-lunch-counter-will-be-up-and-running-once-again-in-california\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T01:06:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:06:38","slug":"the-last-operating-woolworths-lunch-counter-will-be-up-and-running-once-again-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246481","title":{"rendered":"The Last Operating Woolworth’s Lunch Counter Will Be Up and Running Once Again in California"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A neighborhood icon, the Bakersfield luncheonette will mix modern design touches with classic decor<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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The last operating Woolworth lunch counter, in Bakersfield, California, seen in the 1990s.
\n Courtesy of Emily Waite<\/span>
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When its first\u00a0lunch counter opened in New Albany, Indiana, around 1923, the F.W. Woolworth Company was already known for innovation. Founded by Frank Winfield Woolworth in New York in 1879, the retail chain sold staple items from pencils to baseballs at low prices, often just a nickel or a dime, a revolutionary concept that helped Woolworth\u2019s expand to 5,500 five-and-dime stores nationwide at its peak. Then, the company took the concept a step further by offering shoppers an affordable meal. \u00a0<\/p>\n

A 1939 menu featured cubed minute steak, pan gravy and buttered beets with a roll and French fries for 25 cents\u2014about $5.68 today. Like many public spaces in the mid-1900s, some lunch counters were subject to Jim Crow laws, and thereby inadvertent political crucibles. In 1960 four Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, launched a sit-in at a Woolworth\u2019s lunch counter<\/a> to protest segregation. The sit-ins spread to more than a hundred cities, and within six months, the Greensboro lunch counter\u2014now part of the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History<\/a>\u2014was desegregated.\u00a0A counter stool is also on view at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.\u00a0(Last month, erroneous news reports\u00a0falsely claimed<\/a>\u00a0the lunch counter artifacts were being removed from display.)<\/p>\n

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Four stools and a section of the lunch counter from the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth\u2019s, where silent protests against discrimination were held, are on display at the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History. \u201cThese objects have been on view for more than 30 years, and their display is central to our mission to explore, preserve and share the complexity of our past,\u201d said<\/a> Anthea M. Hartig, the museum\u2019s director.<\/p>\n

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Woolworth\u2019s dominance was challenged by a boom in discount retailers, and by 1997 the company closed its 400 remaining U.S. stores. The last operating lunch counter<\/a>, in Bakersfield, California, no longer owned by Woolworth, closed in 2022. However, this June, that counter in Bakersfield is reopening, serving hot meals again, after renovations by husband-and-wife owners Emily and Sherod Waite, who have installed images of historical sit-ins above the luncheonette, as well as landmark pieces by artists of color from the 1930s to today. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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While not a part of the building\u2019s original design, this transom, installed in the 1960s, remains a prominent architectural element in the newly renovated space because of its historical significance to the public.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Katya Cengel<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The kitchen equipment is all original\u2014and still functioning, albeit with some challenges. The Waites also reupholstered the built-in red lunch stools in the original teal-and-peach color scheme and removed the laminate floor to uncover a charming terrazzo tile. And although it isn\u2019t original, they\u2019re keeping the sign over the door that reads \u201cVisit Woolworth\u2019s Luncheonette\u201d; added in the 1960s, it\u2019s iconic to locals, and the Waites would not dare mess with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the whole community would probably hang us out to dry if we replaced it, because they love that so much,\u201d Emily says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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