Childs Restaurant, Restaurant building from 1923 in Coney Island, Brooklyn, United States
Childs Restaurant is a three-story building from 1923 in Coney Island featuring Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with terra cotta decorations. The exterior walls are adorned with maritime imagery including ships and sea creatures as integral design elements.
The restaurant chain began in 1889 and expanded rapidly across America, reaching over 100 locations by the 1920s before decline set in during the Great Depression. This Coney Island location was built in 1923 at the height of the company's success.
The restaurant pioneered a new way of eating where customers selected their meals from a counter rather than from a server, a revolutionary approach at the time. The white-tiled interior and uniformed staff were designed to reassure guests about food cleanliness and safety.
The building received landmark status in 2002 and reopened in 2016 as Ford Amphitheater with concert venues and a restaurant section. Visitors will find modern performance spaces and food service areas inside.
After closing as a restaurant in 1952, the building was converted to a factory that manufactured Peeps marshmallow candies for several decades. This unexpected industrial use brought an entirely different kind of sweetness to the historic structure.
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