Restaurant menu from Dooky Chase's Restaurant: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A menu from Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is a tall, narrow trifold menu formed out of stiff laminated paper. The outside of the first two flaps is a mauve color. The cover flap has a decorative vine and floral border in pink running down the left-hand margin. Projecting out from this border at a ninety degrees angle is an illustrated pink pole with a sign and a lantern hanging from it. The sign has an off-white background with ornate dark red text that reads “DOOKY / CHASE’S.” There is decorative scrollwork attached to the top and bottom of the sign. At the bottom of the page is a rectilinear space designated by a series of curling lines. Within the space is text in dark red that reads “2301 Orleans Avenue / New Orleans, Louisiana.” The middle section of the outside has a mauve background with a large vertically oriented rectangle in the center. The rectangle has an off-white background with dense dark red text about the services the restaurant provides and the history of the restaurant. The last page of the outside of the foldout has a pale green background with dark red text. The text at the top reads “LIQUOR LIST.” On the left-hand side of the text are a pair of happy and sad drama masks in dark red ink. On the right-hand side is an illustration of a beverage glass. The inside of the trifold menu has a pale green background with dark red text. There is a decorative vine and floral border in dark red running down the side margins.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: ca. 1984
• Written by: Leah Chase, American, 1923 - 2019
• Produced by: Unidentified
• Type: menus
• Medium: ink on paper (fiber product) with plastic
• Dimensions: H x W: 15 1/2 × 7 in. (39.4 × 17.8 cm)
• Place used: Tremé, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Activism
• Topic: American South
• Topic: Business
• Topic: Communities
• Topic: Cooking and dining
• Topic: Foodways
• Topic: Women
• Object number: 2021.96.1
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Dooky Chase Restaurant Inc. and Chase Family
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © Dooky Chase's Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.