Bartke's restaurant scrapbook

Frank and Alva Bartke owned a restaurant in New York State in the early 1950s, and decided to open a sister restaurant in Tampa, Florida. They were able to open Bartke’s Restaurant in the terminal for the opening of Tampa International Airport, which sprang from the site of decommissioned Drew Army Airfield. After a fire at their New York restaurant, Bartke’s in Tampa was their sole business venture. At the time, private air travel was rising in popularity, and the restaurant cashed in on the glamor of the industry. Portraying itself as an “Ultra-Modern Steakhouse,” Bartke’s boasted all manner of modern contrivances, from the Hammond organ to the “Gretchen Broil-o-Matic” broiler. The scrapbook traces the first few years of the restaurant, with many newspaper ads posing as authentic articles. It also documents the groups who booked dinners there and special events. The scrapbook also documents trials of Alva’s mother, who struggled to escape communist Europe and become a U.S. citizen. Bartke’s effectively captured the post-war zeitgeist: optimism, consumption, a faith in science and modern inventions, and aggressive boosting of Florida as a place to live and work. The couple later divorced, with Alva opening restaurants in Pinellas County. Frank opened other businesses as well (most notably Bartke’s Dinner Theater), and stayed on at the airport location until TIA opened a new terminal and replaced the private businesses there with corporate ones.