An Illinois Central dining car question

eldiner · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:39 am **Posts:** 534

As part of my effort to preserve dining car history, I tend to pick up a lot of dining car menus. I recently picked up one from the Panama Limited from 1970. There is a box on the menu that reads as follows:ADVENTUROUS TONIGHT?Ask your waiter aboutTHE "KING'S DINNER"$9.85The next most expensive item on the menu was the strip steak at $5.50. So I am really curious, what was the "King's Dinner"?

fredash · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:52 pm **Posts:** 76

I haven’t consulted my menu collection, but my recollection is that the King's Dinner started with a Shrimp Cocktail, followed by salad, a fish course, a charcoal grilled strip steak served with a side of potatoes and a split of wine. Dessert was followed by a Manhattan or Martini plus the usual cup of coffee. Diners got a separate, souvenir King’s Dinner menu with a plastic gold crown affixed to the front. Perhaps someday the heavyweight IC diner at IRM will be restored and offer the King's Dinner. Any guess as to today’s price tag for this meal?

eldiner · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:39 am **Posts:** 534

Quote:

Any guess as to today’s price tag for this meal?

Well, the Strip Steak was $5.50. My last New York Strip Steak on an Amtrak diner was $18.50 so if you use the same rate of increase then today's "King's Dinner" would be $33.15.

Quote:

Perhaps someday the heavyweight IC diner at IRM will be restored and offer the King's Dinner.

One of the ideas we have kicked around is charging for riding our diner and then use the 1968 EL menu and charge 1968 prices. Even if people paid, say $40 to ride they would get a kick saying they paid $4 for dinner!Thanks for detailing the King's Dinner for me.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:47 pm

Contact me off-list; I can put you in touch with rail-dining guru Jim Porterfield of Railfan & Railroad Magazine. I did check his first edition of "Dining By Rail" to no avail.I would suggest that such a dinner at today's prices in a real rail-dining environment (i.e. no commissary in New Orleans to provide fresh shrimp/etc.), given more accurate adjustments in the prices of seafood, etc. might run closer to $40-50 in today's dollars.

Peter Nicholson · **Posted:** Fri Jun 10, 2005 2:13 am

Quoting from Arthur D. Dubin's "Some Classic Trains" of 1964:"A newly introduced King's Dinner provides an epicurean experience in the grand tradition of another day. The $9.85 repast includes cocktail, fresh shrimp or crab, fish course, broiled steak accompanied by imported wine, apple pie with cheese, coffee and a choice of liqueur."