By Marlise Schoeny, History Curator

Once upon a time, shopping for new clothes, housewares, etc. meant making a special trip to one of the marquee department stores in the city center. The store was different depending on where you lived, but for many living in Columbus, Ohio, this meant a trip to Lazarus. Shopping excursions were often a full-day affair including lunch at one of the several dining options available inside the store. While dining during shopping today would most likely consist of grabbing a Starbucks coffee while wandering Target, it was once a beloved part of the shopping experience. There is more discuss and remember about the Lazarus dining experience than could possibly be contained in one post, so consider this a brief trip down memory lane that will hopefully inspire you to seek out more information about your favorite dining spot.

While restaurants inside department stores may not have seemed unusual to shoppers by the mid-20th century, it was once quite a novel idea. Lazarus installed the Niagara Soda Fountain in 1891 to serve light refreshments to guests at their store. It consisted of white travertine marble and had twenty-five stools to serve patrons a selection of floats and other treats. It is worth noting, that a single scoop of ice cream was 5 cents and a soda was 10 cents. When Lazarus moved to their new location in 1909, they moved the soda fountain as well.

The soda fountain was quite popular, and soon the dining offerings were expanded. The Fifth Floor Tea Room was opened in 1914, with the Balcony Tea Room following close behind. Both rooms were quite popular, particularly among working women and college students. The tea rooms also hosted women's fashion shows, rush parties and other social functions. Both tea rooms would undergo several changes and updates before becoming the restaurants most Central Ohioans remember as the Chintz Room and the Colonial Room.

In 1926, the Balcony Tea Room was reimagined as the Colonial Room. The Colonial Room was designed to resemble the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Colonial Room is best remembered for their Chicken Salad Lemonaise (not to be confused with the Chintz Room chicken salad), the ham loaf and the Baked Cheese Sandwich. The Colonial Room, while not as casual as the Copper Kettle lunch counter, was a somewhat more relaxed alternative to the Chintz Room.

Perhaps no restaurant in the history of dining at Lazarus is more fondly remembered than the Chintz Room. By 1987, Lazarus ran eleven restaurants but the Chintz Room is the location I hear most about when discussing memories of Lazarus with people who grew up in and around Columbus, Ohio. In 1953, the Fifth Floor Tea Room was remodeled and reopened as the Chintz Room. It was an upscale restaurant, so named due to its chintz patterned curtains. A popular spot for both lunch and dinner, the Chintz Room chicken salad was by far the most requested recipe by the public. While I was never able to dine at the Chintz Room, I must admit that I would be more likely to dine on the chicken salad than the scalloped eggplant, which I have also learned was quite popular. If we're being completely honest, the Jojo ice cream sundae featuring the upside-down ice cream cone and clown face, would be my first choice. The Chintz Room offerings became so popular, that Lazarus introduced a "take-home" section for those wishing to enjoy the dishes without dining in the restaurant. On January 30, 1998, the Chintz Room closed after 45 years of service.

Also located on the fifth floor, The Buckeye Room and the Chintz Room shared a kitchen. It was a more casual affair, with fast homestyle entrees such as chicken tetrazzini. The Maryland style chicken livers were also quite popular. The Copper Kettle Lunch Counter opened in 1957 in the lower level annex. Its long, winding lunch counter featured cheap, fast food such as vegetable soup, stuffed mushrooms and shortcake.

By the 1980s, Federated Department Stores was dictating that restaurants in their stores be more standardized. This led to restaurants becoming less unique and less of a signature experience. Stores like Lazarus were in competition with mall food courts by this time, and sit-down restaurants were fading in popularity. Food courts were faster and cheaper than the in-store restaurants and shoppers didn't care as much about where they ate. In fact, food choices were more likely to be driven by the children accompanying their parents shopping rather than the adults choosing the dining location as was the case in previous decades.

On August 14, 2004, the downtown Columbus, Ohio, Lazarus building closed. While the physical location may be gone, the Lazarus dining experience can still be recreated in your own home! The Lazarus Company published a cookbook in 1976 featuring many of their most beloved recipes. This cookbook can still be found in the catalog of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. So break out your china, put on your hat and gloves and host your own Lazarus dining experience!

Our Archives & Library has many amazing resources for you to learn more about the history of Lazarus. Be sure to visit the Archives Wednesday through Friday for a research appointment to see these documents.

Do you still have things from your time shopping and dining at Lazarus? Are you curious to see if they could be a part of the Ohio History Connection's collection? Check out our donations page to learn more!

If you're looking for a book about the history of Lazarus, check out "Look to Lazarus" by David and Beverly Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker published in 2011.