Bad postcard of the week: The Canopy restaurant had a nice lobby

Between all the Rushing and reading during the last several months, we’ve neglected our ongoing pursuit of bad postcards.

I came across one recently that this connoisseur of gloriously bad postcards found impressive. And it’s right here in Michigan, too!

The back reads:

“In Brighton, it’s the Canopy. Food with imagination. Cocktail Lounge and Dining Rooms. Smorgasboard every Thursday, 5:30-9:30 p.m. Main Dining Room seating 100 people. Walnut Room seating 85 people. Gaslight room seating 25 people.”

And, guessing from our spectacular view in this postcard, the lobby seats about 10.

There are many wonderfully bad restaurant advertising postcards that show empty dining rooms filled with beautifully decorated tables. And we’ve even come across some with unspectacular chairs.

But I’ve never found a deserted lobby view quite like this. Oh, somewhere down the corridor we can catch a glimpse of some tables.

But mostly we’re getting benches where people chill waiting for a table in the Walnut Room. It looks like there might be something on display in the wheeled cart by the fake plants. And I can’t tell what’s going on across the hall behind the glass. Are those stuffed animals?

But we do get a nice view of the blue-gray carpet and the recessed ceiling!

The Canopy folded up for good in the 1980s, but some stories recall it to be a nice place to get a steak and enjoy some music.

A 2012 Livingston Post article tells us:

“For much of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, the Canopy was the most famous landmark in Brighton, as people came from far and wide to eat there. A spectacularly elegant restaurant located on Grand River Avenue, the Canopy had linen tablecloths, sparkling glasses and incredible steaks.The Canopy also had Earl Williams.Earl was the house pianist at the Canopy, and one of the best things about dining there was that you got to listen to him tickling the ivories. Earl Williams was more than just a Brighton institution – he was a Brighton legend.”

Sounds neat. And today we have a legendary bad postcard.

If you like the bad postcards, here's a link to some the posts from the MLive days. Scroll down for more here in the blog.