{"id":217840,"date":"2010-01-14T11:43:17","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T16:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.downtownphoenix.com\/blog\/?p=1670"},"modified":"2010-01-14T11:43:17","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T16:43:17","slug":"the-crazies-reminisce-about-old-arizona-club-over-lunch-at-a-downtown-staple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/217840","title":{"rendered":"The Crazies Reminisce About Old Arizona Club Over Lunch at a Downtown Staple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since my initial blogs on Crazy Good Phoenix Food<\/em>, posted when this new site was launched several months ago, the \u201cCrazies\u201d and I haven\u2019t lunched as regularly as we are oft inclined.\u00a0 The holidays kept us busy with menu planning for our own tables.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you are not up to speed on the \u201cCrazies\u201d you can check out our older postings under the \u201cblog\u201d section in this Web site [Editor’s Note: <\/em>Here<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Here<\/em><\/a>, for instance<\/em>].\u00a0 There, you can get a brief history on the \u201cCrazies\u201d and a little glimpse into their personas.<\/p>\n

We did manage a few lunches over the holiday season, including a visit to Tom\u2019s Restaurant and Tavern<\/a>, a great joint in downtown Phoenix that has been serving since 1929.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over lunch, we enjoyed some fun discussion about the early days of the Arizona Club.<\/p>\n

Consider yourself served\u2026<\/p>\n

Tom\u2019s Restaurant and Tavern<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Toms\"This longtime Phoenix standby has had a few locations since it originally started in the late 1920\u2019s. It exists to this day, serving many of the mainstay recipes that it has offered from its humble beginnings.<\/p>\n

The restaurant was opened in 1929 by Tom Higley at 136 W. Adams St, which had previously housed the city morgue.\u00a0 By the late 1980\u2019s, the restaurant was located to One Renaissance Square.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the beginning, Tom’s has attracted Arizona politicians, attorneys and dealmakers. Now celebrating its 80th anniversary<\/a>, it is a place worth checking out, if not for the food, then to take in all the photographs of decades\u2019 worth of leaders, lawmakers and mover-and-shakers that have graced the restaurant.<\/p>\n

The service here has always been solid. This day is no different. Our server is friendly, prompt, helpful and polite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom\u2019s fare is mostly diner and comfort food \u2013 the standard burgers, melts, Rueben\u2019s, and more \u2013 with \u201cvanilla\u201d salads and sandwiches, plus some requisite health-conscientious food for good measure.<\/p>\n

At our lunch visit, the Crazies and I enjoy one of the old standbys \u2013 Tom\u2019s Spaghetti Red, a concoction of angel hair pasta topped with red chili and a garlic toast on the side.\u00a0 It is good enough, but nothing to come back for, these days, anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We also shared the fish and chips on our visit.\u00a0 This serving is not what it used to be \u2013 not crisp at all and not much flavor.\u00a0 The tartar sauce works overtime on this dish to give it some kick. Malt vinegar and lemon are put to hard labor to make the dish more palatable.<\/p>\n

\"Arizona_Club\"\u201cDaddy was a fan of the Spaghetti Red, but it was the burger with pickled onions that he raved about,\u201d said Helen.\u00a0 \u201cThe pickled onions have been off the menu forever, but I think they should bring them back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, the somewhat-par-food -withstanding, we enjoy a nice chat while we lunch.\u00a0 From the restaurant, you can see the original Arizona Club, which had its origins atop the Luhrs Building, located at 11 West Jefferson.<\/p>\n

The Luhrs Building was built at a cost of $553,000 by local businessman George Luhrs and opened on April 1, 1924. The building’s four upper floors housed the facilities of the Arizona Club, including dining rooms, lounges, a library, and bedrooms for club members. The ground floors were leased as office space. When the Arizona Club moved out of the Luhrs Building in 1971, the upper floors were also converted to offices.<\/p>\n

The Luhrs Building is faced with brown brick, with elaborate marble ornamentation on the uppermost two floors.\u00a0 The Luhrs Tower, adjacent to the Luhrs Building, was built five years later.\u00a0 A magnificent tribute to Art Deco architeture, located at First Avenue and Jefferson Street, it was considered a \u201cskyscraper\u201d in its day, with 11 floors and a height of 185 feet.\u00a0 The Crazies’ father [see photo] officed his insurance business in this building for several years.<\/p>\n

Back to the Arizona Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the men of establishment in town went to the Arizona Club,\u201d says Ann.\u00a0 \u201cAt that time, the Phoenix Country Club was considered more of a \u2018family\u2019 place, but the Arizona Club was where the men congregated.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Crazies, in its earliest days, the top floor of the Arizona Club housed a dining room. \u201cIt was a great big place with huge picture windows looking on the east and west \u2013 it was very elegant,\u201d said Helen.\u00a0 \u201cIt had a big \u2018round\u2019 table that the men joined each other for lunch — sort of the \u2018old guard table\u2019.\u00a0 It was considered prestigious to sit at the table and I remember Daddy always sat there with lots of other old-timers,\u201d Helen added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe celebrated more than a few family events at the Arizona Club,\u201d said Ann.\u00a0 \u201cWe had great fun at my son\u2019s 13th birthday party at the Club,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd we had a huge family reunion at the club the Thanksgiving before I was married,\u201d said Helen.<\/p>\n

Another floor of the original Arizona Club were the \u201cmen\u2019s quarters\u201d explains Helen. \u201cIt was a place for men to live and ONLY men were allowed there,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was mostly bachelors or men who had been recently divorced.\u00a0 Plenty of movers and shakers lived there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and lots of men-of-position would live there during the summer when their families moved to cooler locations to escape the heat,\u201d says Ann.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to remember in those days, most homes didn\u2019t have refrigeration, or air-conditioning as you might call it, so many families essentially closed up their homes for the summer,\u201d Helen said. \u201cWomen and children would leave for cooler climates in June and return when school started in September.\u00a0 The men would take up living at the men\u2019s quarters at Arizona Club.\u00a0 It was much like a fraternity house \u2013 plenty of camaraderie, card games, and drinking,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Daddy was older and not well, we would still drive him almost daily to the Arizona Club to enjoy a meal, but by then it had moved to the First National Bank (now the Wells Fargo Building),\u201d Helen said.\u00a0 \u201cHe still ate at the round table with some of the old-timers and some of the younger members at the table kindly looked after him,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cFond times for our dad and great memories for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The great conversation this day rounds out the average food for a nice lunch experience.<\/p>\n

Next week, we visit The District <\/a>at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since my initial blogs on Crazy Good Phoenix Food, posted when this new site was launched several months ago, the \u201cCrazies\u201d and I haven\u2019t lunched as regularly as we are oft inclined.\u00a0 The holidays kept us busy with menu planning for our own tables.\u00a0 If you are not up to speed on the \u201cCrazies\u201d you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4049,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4049"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}