Talk:Lawry's The Prime Rib

History and corporate structure

It seems like there really ought to be articles about each of the restaurants and about the umbrella company, but it doesn't seem like there's enough material (yet?) to make it worthwhile. Until then, I'm keeping all of the info on this page.

It does bother me that the Tam O'Shanter Inn (established 1922 and still open at the same location) is a mere footnote on this article about the second Frank/Van De Kamp restaurant. (But then again, I'm an incorrigible Tam's fan.)

Because, outside of LAX, no one has ever heard of it. Except for its fans, it is strictly non-notable. Lawry's is certifiably famous. Chasen's was. Don the Beach. was. Trader Vic's is. The 21 in NYC, plus other NYC restaurants, are also famous and deserve separate articles. Hayford Peirce 17:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

just created this article, you can't really call restaurants in operation since 1922 non-notable riffic (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. (Though 85 years at the same location under the same ownership does seem notable.) Call me a weirdo, but I prefer Tam's. Like I said, I'm a fan. :-) Jordan Brown 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It'd be nice to have information about the defunct locations - there used to be two La Cienega locations, plus Lawry's California Center near Dodger Stadium. This article mentioned a Hong Kong location; the Lawry's web page doesn't list it so I presume that either that was an error or it is defunct.

When were there two separate Lawry's at the same time? Lawry's once owned a couple of somewhat similar restaurants more or less across the street in the late 1950s or early 1960s. I ate at both. One was called Stears, I'm pretty sure, and I forget the name of the other. They only lasted for a couple of years, however. Hayford Peirce 17:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure, because I never ate at the other one, but I believe that in ~1980 there were restaurants on both sides: Lawry's The Prime Rib and Lawry's Westside Broiler (or something like that). I don't think this is just a sleep-deprivation-induced memory, as my wife confirms the existence of a second restaurant on La Cienega. (I dont' find anything with Google, though.) Jordan Brown 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

You're probably right about this. I don't think I ever visited LAX in the 80s, so I dunno. About the only way to find out, if you can't do it via Google, would be to go the phone company, or a historical museum in LAX and look through some old phone books for the names. Maybe this could be done by phone, however -- librarians can be very helpful in looking up stuff. Hayford Peirce 17:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

My first call would be to LTPR or Tam's. They might just know. Of course, that wouldn't be citable. Jordan Brown 19:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems noteworthy that the Lawry's chain was not the only Frank/Van de Kamp project: the Van de Kamp seafood product line was founded by Frank and Theodore J. Van de Kamp in 1915. I don't know what the relationship was between Theodore and Walter, but presumably there was one. I haven't found the relationship between the seafood products and Van de Kamp Holland Dutch Bakers, but I suspect that there's a relationship there too.

Jordan Brown 06:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps moving the article to Lawry's Restaurants Inc, with sections for each restaurant and redirects from the individual restaurants?

Jordan Brown 06:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I would oppose that. That would be like moving the Mighty Ducks article to the article about the Walt Disney Corporation. Or the Yankees article to CBS back in the days when CBS owned the Yankees. There's nothing wrong with a separate article about the Lawry's corp, but don't move this resto. article there. Hayford Peirce 17:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a really strong feeling about it, but I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. WDC, CBS, et cetera all have significant amounts of material independent of the teams, and the team info would be lost in the noise. I think an article covering all of Lawry's would only be perhaps twice the size of the current LTPR article; it would still be dominated by LTPR material. Somebody looking for LTPR would still find it easily. It just seems like there's enough generic Lawry's material to justify including it in Wikipedia, just not enough to justify a separate article. The LTPR article is a bit small by itself and a generic article would be small, but together they seem like a good size. Hmm. Maybe with a bit of research the generic article (with discussions of the restaurants, food products, tie-in to VDK) would be enough. I do think that if there were two articles then the generic one would have to be at Lawry's and the LTPR one at Lawry's The Prime Rib. Jordan Brown 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, my feeling isn't very strong either. But I do think that the Lawry restaurant should always be the name of the article and the lead info. Without the resto, after all, there wouldn't be the rest of the corporate structure at all.... Hayford Peirce 17:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If there was only one article, then Lawry's, Lawry's The Prime Rib, Tam O'Shanter Inn, et cetera should all lead to the same place... and I'm not picky about what the name of the "real" article would be, though (since it'd be generic) I'd tend towards giving it a more generic name. However, two articles would be fine too, if we had enough material to fill them out. Jordan Brown 19:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, just to keep things simple, and to save a lot of work, I would suggest just leaving this article (with its name) as it is and adding any additional Lawry-type info to it, including Tam O, etc. It would fit in well enough, I think. And it would take about two minutes to create a brief article called "Tam O'Shanter," which would then be redirected to "Lawry's". If enough info could be developed about Tam, then that article could be expanded on its own. It know it's very old, and that the Disney crowd used to hang out there. Maybe, just because of its age, it's notable enough to have an article of its own. Since you apparently like going there, you could take some pix of it to include, also some pix of Lawry's -- trying to find non-copyrighted pix for Wikipedia is always a terrific pain. Hayford Peirce 21:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Happy to take pix, but LTPR is outside my usual stomping ground, and when I go to Tam's it tends to be dinnertime and thus dark. I'll see what I can do. Jordan Brown 00:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

House of Prime Rib

Ah, I scanned the article but didn't see that it had been moved down there. Hayford Peirce 17:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

So I assumed. No big deal. I trust that arrangement is acceptable? Jordan Brown 17:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, I do think that it ought to be moved somewhat higher up -- it's pretty invisible way down there. And I do know that anytime anyone in S.F. goes to House PR the question always comes up about which one was first -- and the House PR people always insist that they were first. Hayford Peirce 17:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article has approximately four sections: overview, history, chain, competition. If we assume that the overview goes first, there are only six permutations :-). I wouldn't mind moving "competition" above "chain", but I'd feel a bit funny putting it above "history". After all, the history is one of the most interesting aspects of the restaurant. (Of course, if we create a generic-Lawry's article, the chain info would move there.) I'll move it above the chain info for now, and see if I can separate history from overview a bit more. Jordan Brown 19:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I came to this article after dining at Lawry's with some people who pointed out the astonishing similarities between Lawry's and the House of Prime Rib, and I could find nothing in the current Lawry's article (or anywhere else on Wikipedia) referencing the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco. Whoever removed this content did not provide a summary of his/her/their edit, nor did he/she/they provide a justification for doing so. // Internet Esquire (talk) 20:46, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Lawry's HK

It might be worth mentioning that the Lawry's in HK is operated and owned by Maxim's Catering (rather than by Lawry's themselves), and more relevantly, the prime rib there is not served on the bone due to law. I just dined there less than a month ago and was pretty shocked to see the differences in how they handled things, but the prime rib lacking bone stuck out the most. Jon914 08:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

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