http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq5.html#restaurant
Historic restaurant prices
Old menus are the best place to find historic restaurant prices. The trick is to find ones from the type of restaurant you need (Steak house? Family-style chain? Roadside diner? Outdoor lobster shack? Railroad dining car? World’s fair?) in the place/time you are studying. This is not an easy task. Very few old menus are uploaded to the Internet. Start here:
Menu collections
The Culinary Timeline has many links to restaurant menus.
Use Google to search for old menus…use keywords like “1902 restaurant menu” “st louis 1904 restaurant menu” “poland spring house 1884 menu” Be prepared to wade through several unproductive pages to get to the information you need. You may also have to try several years…the Internet will not automatically give you a menu for 1885 if you keyword 1886. If you are looking for 17th and early 18th century items use the term “bill of fare.”
Web sites dedicated to historic events (World’s Fairs, may include restaurant information. The
Restaurant biographies (Remembering Woolworth’s, Karen Plunkett-Powell, The Harvey Girls, Lesley Poling-Kemps [Harvey Houses] & web sites ( McDonald’s ) sometimes include historic menus.
Local restaurant prices
Identify historic restaurants in your area that are still operating…they may be able to provide you with old menus/pricing information.
Local public libraries and historic societies sometimes archive old menus.
Local newspapers (on microfilm) can be used to find advertisements for holiday restaurant specials (Mother’s Day brunch, New Years Eve buffet, Thanskgiving dinner).