Updated: September 19, 2022
Worcester 300 trivia contest
Worcester 300 trivia contest, part 15: Lunch cars
Photo | Courtesy of Worcester Historical Museum
A Worcester Lunch Car Co. diner on Shrewsbury Street
WBJ has partnered with the Worcester Historical Museum to run a year-long trivia contest in celebration of the 300th anniversary of Worcester’s founding on June 14, 1722. Readers should email their answer to the question below by Sept. 29 to bkane@wbjournal.com or complete the Google Form below to compete for a special year-end prize package.
Lunch cars
In the 1890s, the lunch car industry in Worcester was dominated by T. H. Buckley, known as the lunch wagon king. In 1906, Philip Duprey and Irving Stoddard opened the Worcester Lunch Car and Carriage Manufacturing Co., advertising themselves as successors to Buckley’s empire. Their premiere lunch car, given the serial number 200, was the American Eagle Cafe and opened on Myrtle Street in 1907. Over the next 50 years, the horse-drawn cars evolved into stationery diners. The Worcester Lunch Car Co. would manufacture 650, shipping them as far as Michigan and Florida, although a large number remained in New England. While the years of prosperity following World War II were favorable to the WLCC, it was undercut by competition and the emergence of fast food in the 1950s. The company closed in 1961.
Trivia question: What is the name of the Shrewsbury Street restaurant housed inside a Worcester Lunch Car Co. diner?
And the answer to last edition’s question: The Worcester dessert manufacturer that once sold its pies on a reusable plate, where customers paid a 5-cent deposit refundable upon its return, is Table Talk Pies.
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