Ah, the tea room at your favorite department store. Lunch with an adult, explaining the niceties of dining out. How to dip a soup spoon. Avoiding making noises with one's soda straw. Discovering that ice cream was almost as tasty without a cone. (Visions of peppermint stick ice cream flash through my head. Did I imagine having it there or is it merely the result of too much frozen yogurt?)
Famous-Barr was the primary one I knew, its glamour enhanced by the fact that the gorgeous older sister of a girl I knew modelled there for a while. (Hi, Bonnie and Jane!) When I ventured in, solo, as a young teenager, I was treated with dignity. I wrote about it for St. Louis Magazine.