KinSource - Tale of the Week - Deservedly Popular

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Daily Globe, January 6, 1885, p. 2

DESERVEDLY POPULAR.

The Magnificent Restaurant and Barroom of Smith Brothers.

A Description of Its Artistic Splendors, and a List of Its Competent Attaches.

The advent of each new year brings many things that claim interest from the thousands of busy citizens who cherish a pride in our charming and vigorous city; nothing gaining more universal welcome than new enterprises which make their debut with the first day of each January; for every St. Paul man is loyal to his adopted home, and her advancement.

A few days ago we gave in a brief outline the opening of Smith Brothers' magnificent cafe and barroom, located at the corner of Fourth and Sibley streets. The notice was crude and gave our readers a very faint idea of what the place really is; and now that it is opened and running in all the completeness that was planned for it, a much better sketch in printer's ink can be perfected of its beauties and its already tremendous popularity. For many months this liberal firm of Smith Bros., so well known through their long business connections with our city, have been veritably turning the old Hall & Parr building inside out. Alterations that demanded weeks of work and plans that required the ingenuity of many of the best artisans in St. Paul have been brought to bear in accomplishing the superb results that are now familiar to many of our business men. The main room is one most perfectly proportioned; and it is used for the bar and lunch counters. It is a model of elegance, and bears the marks of most artistic workmanship in its decorations. The floor, in marble, is without doubt the most expensive ever laid in St. Paul, and the wood work, in exquisitely carved oak, is beautiful in every sense of the word, being finished in its own royal naturalness, daintily traced in ebony. The largest mirror ever brought to this state graces the back of the bar, and is relieved in its massiveness by two small, rich half curtains of silk plush. An artistic urn of solid bronze decorates its center, and these, with the glittering array of splendid cut glass, forms a background fairly dazzling in it gorgeousness.

Adjoining the main room are two reception rooms, one for private parties, the other for public conveniences. Both are sumptuously furnished, and represent an assurance of absolute comfort for visitors to the place. In the extreme rear are the washrooms, closets, etc., and they are meant to afford the best of accomodations, being [luxurious] in their fittings and perfect in plumbing, etc.

The popularity of this undertaking on the part of Smith Bros. was assured instantly on the opening day, and crowds have visited the place hourly since, not out of curiosity, but for the absolute worth gained by patronizing it, and its success overwhelmingly demonstrates that just such a place was needed in the wholesale district of our city. Money has been lavishly expended in its construction and the firm deservedly merit every word of praise and every bit of patronage that they are receiving.

The cafe or restaurant department is under the able management of Mr. J. J. Heatherington, and his name alone guarantees the perfect manner in which it will be conducted. The bill of fare not only embraces every delicacy, but contains in elaborate array the cream of everything tempting. The reasonable prices, more so than ever before presented in St. Paul, being a most conspicuous feature.

The bar embodies every convenience for the serving of drinks, the excellence of which need no mention on our part, as the goods handled by this house have already too wide a reputation. The gentlemen in charge are Mr. Ernest C. Seeley and Martin E. Smith, the former a graduate of Stewart's, in New York, and the latter for two years in the employ of Ed. Stokes, at his famous Hoffman House place, in New York City.

The firm who have evinced so liberal a spirit of enterprise in supplying this institution for the pleasure of our citizens, personally watch every patron's needs, and their untiring hospitality surrounds them with a constant throng of our representative business men. They buy and serve only the best of everything, their foreign liquors being imported direct by them and all their whiskies are bought in bond. A specialty of supplying families has been adopted, and gentlemen in want of goods for their private cellars will find them prepared to sell them the best goods in the market. They refer with pleasure to the excellent work which has been done in fitting up their establishment, and recommend the gentlemen in every department who have been employed by them. On the woodwork, Mr. James Rayson and Mr. James R. Harris have proven most conclusively their excellence as workmen, and the finish of the wood has been in the hands of Mr. George Jones. The decorations by Adix Bros. are wonderfully rich and artistic, and have never been equalled in any like institution in our city.

We suggest a visit from every gentleman who has not been there, and once seen, we prophesy --- well, no use in that, for it is a settled fact that everybody who has been there once has gone regularly since.