Bickford's Restaurants and Cafeterias is a chain of cafeteria-style restaurants founded in 1921. From the 1920s through the 1970s the chain was a mainstay in the New York City area. From the 1970s through the 2000s the chain was primarily located in the New England area. As of 2020, only two locations remained, both in Massachusetts and under the "Bickford's Grille" branding: Burlington and Woburn. The Bickford's Family Restaurant location in Acton, Massachusetts, was closed as of July 2020. Bickford's and Foster's Cafeterias influenced Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Woody Allen, Andy Warhol, William Styron, and Herbert Huncke. Lunchrooms Samuel Longley Bickford (1885–1959) began his restaurant career in 1902. In the 1910s, he was a vice president at the Waldorf System lunchroom chain in New England and, in 1921, he established his own quick-lunch Bickford's restaurants in New York. Bickford's lunchrooms offered modestly priced fare and extended hours. Bickford's architect was F. Russell Stuckert, who had been associated with Samuel Bickford since 1917. Stuckert's father, J. Franklin Stuckert, had designed buildings for Horn & Hardart in the 1890s. During the 1920s, the Bickford's chain expanded rapidly with 24 lunchrooms in the New York area and others around Boston. It also acquired Travelers' Lunch, which had been established by Bickford's brother Harold, the White Lunch System on the West Coast, and the Hayes Lunch System in Boston, which was renamed Hayes-Bickford. A letter with a company stock offering stated, "The lunchrooms operated are of the self-service type and serve a limited bill of fare, which makes possible the maximum use of equipment and a rapid turnover. Emphasis is placed on serving meals of high quality at moderate cost." A 1964 New York City guidebook noted: Breakfast at Bickford's is an old New York custom. In these centrally located, speedy-service, modestly-priced restaurants a torrent of traffic is sustained for a generous span of hours with patrons who live so many different lives on so many different shifts. Expansion With Bickford's restaurants opening in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Sam Bickford and his son, Harold, worked over four decades to expand their cafeteria chain throughout the Northeast. As their expansion continued with drive-in restaurants and associated locations in Florida, Pennsylvania and California, they ultimately opened 85 branches. In the 1930s, union conflicts resulted in vandalism: In 1932 the police blamed members of the glaziers union for vandalism against 24 Horn & Hardart and