What’s for Lunch?

A menu from the Little Hatchet Inn

Fried chicken and waffles, anyone? No doubt this dish would still be a crowd-pleaser today, especially at the going price of $1.10. This menu from the Little Hatchet Inn (circa 1930s) is a clue to the preferences, tastes, and pocketbooks of visitors of the period. The restaurant operated at the site of the modern-day Mount Vernon Inn, at the southern end of the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the entrance to Mount Vernon. The National Park Service, which purchased land just outside Mount Vernon’s gates to construct the parkway, opened the restaurant—and the roadway itself—in 1932 in honor of Washington’s 200th birthday.

The menu speaks to the tastes and available ingredients of the time and place. It’s a Southern menu, with fried chicken and country ham. The Welsh rarebit—a British dish of hot cheese-based sauce served over slices of toasted bread—was a common lunch item at the time. “Our tastes as a society have changed in so many ways, but classics like fried chicken are still a staple,” notes Mount Vernon’s archivist Rebecca Baird. “And things like chicken and waffles have made a comeback.”

Though food and drinks were offered to VIPs and employee Sarah Johnson served milk from the estate’s cows, as well as sandwiches and fruit, to guests in the late 1860s, regular and official concessions did not begin to be offered until 1872, under Superintendent Colonel James McHenry Hollingsworth, with light refreshments sold just outside the Mansion’s kitchen. Trolley service in 1892 brought a surge in visitation and prompted a local family to open a restaurant and “beer hut” outside the main entrance. The Little Hatchet Inn replaced these early facilities. The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the restaurant from the National Park Service in 1992, leading to the Mount Vernon Inn as it operates today.