Nick's Seafood Pavilion, Yorktown, VA, circa 1950

About this postcard

Nick's Seafood Pavilion sits on the Yorktown, Virginia, waterfront, facing the river that made the town a colonial port. The low, wide restaurant carries a rooftop sign and lettering across the facade, with a few cars parked in front and trees filling the background. The printed copy promotes air-conditioned dining rooms and "unique salads," along with endorsements from Duncan Hines, AAA, and Roland L. Hill, the sort of credentials mid-century motorists watched for. The telephone number uses a two-letter exchange, TU for Yorktown, a format that faded out in the 1950s and 1960s. The card also insists the house has no connection with any other restaurant, a claim aimed at imitators trading on a well-known name.