RPI Reunion
RPI Reunion
RPI Evening College

Eateries

RPI Thanks Rams
Highlight of 38 years!

In Memoriam
Charlotte Saxe Schreiberg
Martha Hill Newell
Dr. Wallace Johnston
Carroll Hormachea
Bruce Koplin
Alice Loving Alrich
Emile Cahen Jr.
Jaqui Jacobs Copeland
Dr. Arnold Fleshood

“Where do you get something to eat around here?”

Students sharing a booth at Chelf's

Hungry students need to be fed, and the campus caf or Slop Shop was not always the venue of choice. In yearbooks of the ‘50s and ’60s, there are ads for Eton 's, Chelf's, and Gibrall’s Restaurant—known mostly as Joe's, for the friendly proprietor, Joe Gibrall.

Bob Lindholm ’50BS/H&S recalls, “ Eton ’s was popular with the students when I arrived in February 1947. Jake Gibrall owned Eton 's, and he hung out there. He was good to us. His younger brother Joe opened Gibrall’s on the SE corner of Grace and Harrison, a larger space, sometime after I got there.......and it became THE place to spend the evenings. Those of us at RPI who had joined the Marine Corps Reserve while in school (and that’s another story) had our informal farewell party here when we were called back to active duty for the Korean War in August 1950. 

“Joe let us run a tab all month, then cashed our GI Bill monthly subsistence checks, deducting what we owed him. He was a special friend to the veterans and was always there for us for a favor, loaning his car many times when we had a special date. I understand he died a few years ago.”

Chelf's Drug Store

Chelf's Drug Store on the NE corner of Grace Street and Shafer was another institution. And no wonder. Chelf's was a drug store, a luncheonette, and even a dorm. In this case, it was the customers who lived over the store. Bob was one of them. “Dr. Moore, the pharmacist and owner of Chelf’s, remodeled the 2nd and 3rd floors of his building and rented rooms to us, four to a room in bunkbeds,” Bob says.

The Mirror at the SE corner of Broad and Harrison , [now the VCU Welcome Center ] stayed open till 2-3 am . It was our late night eatery after studying or more likely after a party or a dance. There was also an all-night White Tower at the corner of Ryland Avenue and Grace. A few years later, Ed Peeples ’57BS/E almost remembers a popular place on the west side of Belvedere between Broad and Grace, “which had real late hours where lots of guys went for midnight meals. Can’t remember its name but I can see the owner in my memory.” Anyone?

Bob remembers another detail of social life around campus. “ RPI photographer Joe Engressia ’49 and his wife made ends meet by going to parties and dances to take photos, which we bought for $.50 a copy. That's how I got my collection of party pics.” RPI went dancing at The Wigwam, way out Brook Road , or maybe Tantilla, on Broad Street near Hamilton , over the bowling alley.

Ed agrees that the corner of Harrison and Grace was a happening place. He has written two stories set there. ”I can’t remember when The Village was first there but by the late ‘50s RPI -ers of all descriptions, including me, Tom Robbins ‘59BS/MC, Bill Jones, and other RPI -linked people, frequented the place. There were other very popular food and beer drinking places and a great bakery around that corner.” And maybe Ed got there before anyone else. He adds, “I was born on that corner at St Luke’s, the first in my family to be born in a city and in a hospital.”

On the NW corner of West Franklin and Shafer Streets, The Chesterfield Tea Room on the ground floor of The Chesterfield Apartments, was cheap, but also famous, or infamous, for its small portions, scaled to the appetites of the older ladies who lived there.

Farther afield, Chicken in the Rough on West Broad was popular, Ed reports. “For Chinese, I believe lots of folks went to Joy Garden, still on Broad St west of Boulevard. There were very few Chinese places and virtually no other ethnic other than Italian–-Julian’s was on Broad at Robinson next to the Capitol (movie) Theater. Lots of people went to Bill’s BBQ on Broad just west of Libbie, which is still there. Bill’s had great curb service and sublime chocolate frosties.”

Downtown near MCV, Ed recalls the Skull and Bones, Campus Room, Angelo’s Hot Dog emporium, Chicken’s in the Capitol building, and Thalhimer’s take out with “a deviled crab touched by the hand of God.” Which is perhaps the last word.