Lifelong Langley resident Bruce Brandow recalls as a teen he would wash dishes in his parent’s restaurant, the Delmore, and then attend high school during the afternoon shift.
Langley High School had so many students, they had to attend in different shifts, thanks to the post-war baby boom.
His parents, Bill and Mildred, owned the restaurant from the early 1940s to the 1960s and Bruce, now 73, brought an a la carte menu from the 1940s into the Langley Advance for Throwback Thursday.
Thursday was the big day of the week in Langley Prairie (which would become Langley City in 1955).
“Thursday used to be the busy, busy day because Gibbson’s Auction was down the street,” he said.
Customers could pick up a milkshake for 15 cents, a steak dinner for 50 cents, asparagus soup for 15 cents and sardines on toast for 20 cents.
On the bottom of the 1940s-vintage menu is the interesting note to customers: “Due to war-time conditions and regulations the items listed herewith are subject to change without notice.”
The building that housed the Delmore is still there, now home to a Chinese restaurant and located across the street from the Langley Hotel.
His uncle, Harold, had Brandow’s Drug Store.
Bruce’s father wrote for the Langley Advance while a resident in a sanitarium in Tranquille, now a neighbourhood of Kamloops. Bill had tuberculosis and had been sent to a dry climate. Bruce said he recalls his father being away from about 1947 to 1949.
