For bars, restaurants & interior designers
A working archive of real historic menus for hospitality interiors, designer fit-outs, and private collections.
The Menu Press is a curated archive of original printed menus from the Buttolph Collection at The New York Public Library — transatlantic ocean liners, Gilded-Age hotels, royal yachts, Belle Époque cafés, World’s Fairs, and 1920s Art Deco dining cars. Every card was carried by a real diner, on a real evening, between 1880 and 1928. The files we sell are high-resolution restorations, ready to print at any framing shop, at any scale.
This page is for designers and operators who are looking at a wall and asking: how do I put something here that isn’t a stock cocktail poster?
Three ways to work with the archive
1. Browse and pick yourself. The full archive is at /browse-the-archive — sorted by decade, by city, by brand, by occasion, and by collection. Single cards are USD 12 (one-page menus) or USD 18–24 (complete multi-page archives). Bundles of 8–10 menus are USD 30–60.
2. Buy a kit. The Cocktail Bar Wall Kit (Designer Edition) is twelve curated menus + a printable Layout & Framing Guide with three suggested wall compositions, a frame-size shopping list, and paper recommendations. USD 129. Aimed at operators and designers who want a complete behind-the-bar or feature wall without spending an evening curating.
3. Have us curate. Send a few photos of your space, an existing palette, and an era preference; we hand-pick a 6-, 10-, or 20-piece selection from the archive and deliver it as a mood-board PDF plus private download links. See Custom Curation. USD 49–199. Turnaround 5–7 business days.
Settings the archive works in
- Cocktail bars and speakeasies. NDL Bremen watercolours and HAPAG Mediterranean covers give the room a 1900 Atlantic-crossing register. R.M.S. Olympic 1927 and the 1928 CGT Carte des Vins anchor an Art Deco corner.
- French and continental bistros. Belle Époque Paris dinner cards, Hotel Carlton London 1900s, and the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique menus all carry the typography and palette of the era directly.
- Hotel lobbies and corridors. Manhattan banquet cards from the Waldorf-Astoria, Hotel Astor, and Delmonico’s read as institutional and curatorial — not residential.
- Steakhouses, supper clubs, private dining rooms. Gilded-Age formal banquet menus suit the long, formal dining table. The 1881 Delmonico’s 11-page banquet is a centrepiece.
- Set decoration and prop styling. Period drama, photography, and editorial shoots use archival material because designer-drawn “vintage-look” menus do not survive close-up. The kit and Custom Curation both deliver shoot-ready files at 300 DPI.
Why use real archival menus instead of reproductions
An archival menu carries the printer’s mark, the paper grain, and the typography choices of a working print shop on a specific date. The result reads as documentary rather than thematic — the difference, in interior terms, between a museum object and a souvenir. Patrons notice. Designers notice. Photographers notice on shoot day.
The original artworks are in the public domain in the United States. You may print and display the files in your commercial venue without further permission. You may not resell the digital files themselves — see Copyright Notice.
Trade and multi-property work
For interior designers and hospitality groups working on multiple properties or projects, email hello@themenupress.com with a brief on the property and the room(s). We can put together a property-specific archive package, a multi-room curation, or a trade arrangement for designers running several projects from the same archive.