This marvelous 1961 coffee shop menu with its geometric forms and clean lines epitomizes mid-century modern design and was created for the Pick Hotels chain. Hotelier Albert Pick established a “merchandising house” in Chicago in 1857, supplying hotels, restaurants, bars and soda shops with everything from table linen to glassware. In 1926, the company opened its first hotel and by the 1960s the family-owned Pick Corporation operated 31 hotels across the USA.
This menu was for the Pick Congress Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, which first opened for business in 1893 to welcome visitors to Chicago’s World’s Fair, held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World in 1492.

The Pick Corporation bought the property in 1950 and oversaw a major restoration of the public rooms and bedrooms that lasted until the 1960s.
Mid-century modern design is still revered today for its timelessness – and this "Mad Men" menu is a prime example.

The Pick Congress Hotel is now the Congress Plaza Hotel and remains one of Chicago’s best places to stay.

Courtesy Private Collection.