Salad Bar - History

History

There is a dispute over which restaurant first introduced the salad bar. The Freund's Sky Club Supper Club in Plover, Wisconsin is believed to be the very first salad bar. According to Russell Swanson of Swanson Equipment, In 1950 in the small town of Stevens Point, WI who had specialized in the manufacturing of bars for taverns had said "Im most proud of designing and building that first salad bar". The Sky Club is still managed by Eric & Patrick Freund. Also A 1951 Yellow Pages listing refers to the "salad bar buffet" at Springfield, Illinois restaurant The Cliffs. Hawaiian restaurant Chuck's Steak House claims to have had the first salad bar in the 1960s. Rax Restaurants – a Midwestern fast food chain similar to Arby's – claims to have pioneered the salad bar in the mid-1960s. The New York Times claims that salad bars first began appearing in the late 1960s "in midprice restaurants like Steak and Ale, featuring bona fide salad fixings to keep customers busy and happy until the real food came." Restaurant entrepreneur Norman Brinker has been credited with inventing and popularizing the salad bar.

In the 1970s, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises was based on salad bar-style food. In the early 1970s, Rich Melman's Chicago restaurant and singles bar R. J. Grunts featured an all-you-can-eat salad bar with over 40 items. The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, claims that the term originated in about 1973. Fitness expert Richard Simmons opened a restaurant devoted exclusively to salads called Ruffage as a complement to his exercise business. It later closed.