Lawry's

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Front and back of a 1953 Lawry's menu

Lawry's, The Prime Rib is a well-known restaurant on Restaurant Row on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. It opened in 1938 and for many years was unique among restaurants in having but a single entrée on its menu, a standing roast of prime rib. It now serves a few additional entrées but is still generally considered to be a roast beef restaurant. 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 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, and the salad is hand-mixed in a spinning bowl over cracked ice.

A similar restaurant in San Francisco, the well-known House of Prime Rib, on Van Ness Avenue, is sometimes erroneously said to have antedated Lawry's. The House of Prime Rib, however, did not open until 1941.

In 1938 Lawry's also 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. A few more Lawry's restaurants also specializing in roast beef have opened in recent years in Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas, and locations in the Far East.

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The prices of a 1953 Lawry's meal

In 1949 Lawry's moved from its original location on La Cienega Boulevard to the other side of the street and a few blocks further south to a larger, windowless, and strikingly modernistic building. It has now, however, recently moved back to its original site, into another new building.

In 1956, a few days before the playing of the 1957 Rose Bowl Game between Oregon State and Iowa, Lawry's entertained the two competing teams. This began an annual tradition of hosting both Rose Bowl-bound teams for a prime rib dinner. By the early 1960s, the event had become known as the "Lawry's Beef Bowl."

See also

• Famous Restaurants