From Good Old Home Cooking to Early Taverns & Inns to Today’s Fast Food – Bedford Historical Society

October 18, 2017
With an old fighter plane perched on the roof, a wedding party dances outside Polly’s restaurant in Bedford. The following facts are from an article by Brian Oughlihan in a 2013 Bedford Historical Society newsletter: Back on the Great Road., turn right and you would see a small airplane on the roof of a building. This was Polly’s Restaurant. I have heard that the plane did not survive the hurricane of 1938. The owners were John and Alexandera Polesayka. Polly’s later became Navoy Restaurant. This place had a large lobster tank that looked like a ten-foot wide swimming pool, where you could pick your own lobster to take home. Eventually, the building was  replaced by a hotel, first called the Arrowhead and then the Lord Bedford with the Jolly Porpoise Restaurant, before becoming the Best Western and finally the Bedford Plaza. – Courtesy image (c) Bedford Historical Society, all rights reserved

Submitted by the Bedford Historical Society

How has Bedford’s dining experience changed over the years from back in the days when Bedford was first being settled?  How have our tastes changed and how did people ever manage to put a meal together before the arrival of modern appliances?

Bedford Historical Society President Don Corey will take the audience on a tour to consider these questions when he presents: “From Good Old Home Cooking to Early Taverns & Inns to Today’s Fast Food” – the next in the Historical Society’s series of guest speaker programs.

Open to the public, the Sunday afternoon, Oct. 22 program will be held in Upper Fellowship Hall of the First Church of Christ, Congregational at 25 The Great Rd.  Refreshments baked by Society members will be available starting at 2 pm; brief announcements at 2:30 will be followed by the guest speaker, Mr. Corey.

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Corey will look at some kitchen artifacts from the Society’s own collection, and will test audience members’ memories and their ability to identify some of them.  He will recall stories of Bedford’s taverns, inns and restaurants from the time when dining out in Bedford first occurred up to more modern times.

During the 20th Century, the restaurant business grew rapidly with Bedford’s own population explosion and with business growth.  The Historical Society’s photos and mementos from a number of restaurants will be shared, and audience members will be encouraged to add their own memories of Bedford dining.

Honored as Bedford’s 2002 Citizen of the Year, Don Corey is a former Bedford Selectman and Planning Board member, and he currently serves on the Town’s Historic Preservation Commission and Community Preservation Committee.  He is active with the Friends of the Job Lane House as well as the Historical Society.  In addition to his occasional presentations at Historical Society meetings, he has given talks on historical topics to various groups including Carleton-Willard Village and BrightView assisted living facilities and to Lane School students during their Walk of Historic Bedford each spring.

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