By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
With the last of the Deco restaurants set to close, News Reporter Robert J. Summers took a look back at the lunch counters that served up millions of hamburgers and cups of coffee to Buffalonians from 1918 to 1979.
At the high point, there were 50 Decos. By 1976, there were only nine. The Deck family sold the chain to Sportservice in 1961. By the end of the 1970s, the chain was a greasy memory for hundreds of thousands of Western New Yorkers.
July 29, 1979: “Hard times ate into Deco chain’s fortunes”
“Deco was the original fast food place. Back in the days before anyone heard of McDonalds or Burger King, before anyone dared make a ‘shake’ without milk or package hot cherry pie in a rectangle of cardboard, Buffalonians were getting their quick meals at some 50 Deco restaurants.”
