When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
This group is a mid-century hospitality snapshot: New York luxury hotel, DC seafood and beer institutions, a Balkan oddity, and an Indianapolis convention hotel. Most of these places are gone. The matchbooks are the souvenirs.
The Mayfair Regent (Park Avenue at 65th, New York)
610 Park Avenue, built 1925 as a residential hotel by J.E.R. Carpenter. It later operated as the Mayfair Regent. Le Cirque opened on the ground floor in 1974 and made the building a social landmark. After a 1990s bankruptcy it was converted to condos (now The Mayfair) with Trump involved in the conversion. Restaurant Daniel occupies the old dining space. The script on the cover is classic Upper East Side hotel stationery.
Phillips Flagship (900 Water St. SW, Washington, D.C.)
Giant waterfront seafood house on the old Southwest waterfront, part of the Phillips family business that started on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and exploded with Ocean City and Harborplace. The DC Flagship was a tourist-scale buffet (hundreds of seats, crab cakes, all-you-can-eat) that critics loved to hate and visitors packed. It closed as the waterfront was rebuilt into The Wharf. “We make your day…” is peak 1980s–90s hospitality copy.
The Brickskeller (1523 22nd St. NW, Washington, D.C.)
Dupont Circle basement rathskeller opened in 1957 by Corsican immigrants Felix and Marie Coja in the old Robert Peter Inn / Marifex Hotel. It became a beer cathedral—eventually 1,000+ bottled beers, Guinness-level selection, early U.S. sit-down tastings. Family-run for three generations. Closed December 2010; the space became Bier Baron / DC Comedy Loft. The matchbook’s “500 brands” line is an earlier count; the list kept growing.
Serbian Crown Restaurant (4529 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.)
Tenleytown spot that was one of the few Russian/Serbian restaurants in DC in the 1970s. Later associated with owner Rene Bertagna and a Great Falls, Virginia location famous (and infamous) for exotic game: kangaroo, lion, even bear until it was banned. The Wisconsin Avenue matchbook is the DC chapter. The Virginia restaurant collapsed around 2012–13 after a bad Google listing reportedly tanked weekend traffic; the owner sued.
Hyatt Regency Indianapolis at State Capitol (155 W. Washington St.)
Opened 1977 as part of Merchants Plaza, then the largest private downtown project in Indiana, on the site of the demolished Hotel Lincoln. Mixed hotel + bank offices next to the Statehouse and Convention Center. Still operating as Hyatt Regency Indianapolis / PNC Center, with the revolving Eagle’s Nest restaurant on top. The orange cover and [phone removed by ] number date this to the hotel’s early decades.
O’Donnell’s Sea Grills
Thomas A. O’Donnell opened the first Sea Grill at 1207 E Street NW in 1922. A second downtown spot followed at 1221 E Street. Famous for “Norfolk style” seafood (sizzling butter, garlic, Old Bay in a little pan) and rum buns that predated the waterfront copycats. Bethesda opened 1956; downtown closed by 1980; later Gaithersburg ran until 2013. The family still sells seafood as O’Donnell’s Market in Potomac, Maryland. The navy cover with green “SEA GRILLS” is one of the longer-lived DC restaurant brands on the table.
Taken together, the lot is mostly late 1970s–1990s giveaways from places people actually smoked in: hotel desks, waterfront buffets, and beer basements. Condition on the covers is original wear, which is what you wanted kept
