I really enjoy Cohen House. Outside of the the library, it’s my favorite place on campus. My daughter had her wedding reception there. It feels like home. It’s a beautiful spot, the food is pretty good and I’ve heard some great stories sitting around those tables. (Some of them might be fish stories, but what the heck.)
We have surprisingly few photos of activities inside Cohen House over the years, so I tend to examine closely any image I do come across, especially of scenes of the lunch crowd. This one is nice, with the handsome waiter in his jacket and 1970s haircut and the diner (I don’t know who he is) signing his ticket. For a while–I guess it was several years–we didn’t have to sign our tickets, but this practice recently returned.
And here’s a current Cohen House waiter, one of my favorites, although I confess to liking them all. No more jacket and bow tie, but instead an oxford cloth button down with the snappy Cohen House logo on it:
Bonus: There’s some really nice decorative ironwork in and on this building. Lots of it.
Extra Bonus: I’ve just been alerted to a new Rice blog and after checking it out, it turns out to be both pretty fun and historically interesting. The top story today is about a tree outside the Continuing Studies shack. I don’t care who you are, that’s a great topic.
The diner looks like it might be Ben Blanton, who was with the Rice Development Office in the 70s.
(The waiter’s name tag says “Jim Gillingham”.)
When I was a student at Rice in the late 70’s, waiting tables and bartending at Cohen House was part of the work/study program. I worked lots of events there. It was worth it for a piece of Madge’s Pecan Pie.
Oh, Madge’s pies! And the brisket ends. I loved being the carver because I sampled liberally.
I once spilled an entire pitcher of tea onto a civil engineering prof.
He was not happy, less so when I said, “Good thing I’m an English major.”
Why don’t they have student waiters there any more?
The students were needy and not-so-professional, so they moved to a professional waitstaff shortly after I left in 2003. Many of my closest friends from Rice were my fellow waiters there, though. (I hated, hated carving the brisket, though.)