Paper menus, complimentary bread baskets, and real candles used to be standard-issue components of the sit-down restaurant experience. Over the past five years though, since the pandemic and inflation scrambled budgets, business models, and diner behavior, many establishments nixed these small touches as cost-saving measures. But within the past three years or so, there has been a resurgence for one old-school element: the humble matchbook.
At host stands and counters across the city, there are free matches on offer. New spots, such as La’ Shukran and Balos, fast-casual eateries including Sonny’s and Timber Pizza Company, and long-running favorites like Old Ebbitt Grill, Le Diplomate, Hank’s Oyster Bar, and The Dabney stock the tiny souvenirs.
Matchbooks were originally given out in restaurants and bars starting around the early 20th century when cigarette smoking was widespread. They worked as miniature billboards for the establishments every time someone lit up. Although smoking has declined precipitously, matchbooks still serve as effective advertising tools.
“It’s a very inexpensive way to do a little bit of marketing,” says David Strauss, owner of OKPB speakeasy in Mount Pleasant, which offers free matchbooks emblazoned with a pink elephant; he estimates he spends around $1,700 annually to purchase 10,000.
It’s hard to quantify how much business matchbooks can fire up, but there is anecdotal evidence about their effectiveness. Chef-owner Aaron Silverman offers matchbooks at Pineapple & Pearls, Rose’s Luxury, and his catering company Extra Fancy. It was a cheeky book of matches from the latter featuring the phrase “Fancy is my second favorite F word” that got the attention of Jeff Bezos’ fiancee, Lauren Sánchez. She posted a picture of them to her Instagram stories, which went viral, generating a groundswell of free advertising.
Silverman adds that it’s little flourishes like thoughtfully designed matchbooks that add up to a grander restaurant experience, quoting architect and designer Charles Eames, who said, “The details are not the details. They make the design.”
Chris Svetlik, owner of the Republic Cantina, agrees that matchbooks aren’t merely a marketing tool. “They communicate that a restaurant cares and is looking for little ways to surprise and delight,” says the former graphic designer who created matchbooks with a logo of a cowboy riding a taco for his Tex-Mex-inspired restaurant. “Matches are the perfect little keepsake; a fun little calling card; a memory of a special meal; a way to add to someone’s special connection with the restaurant.”
Many people pick them up as tokens of their dining and drinking experiences, perhaps throwing them into a bowl on a coffee table at home as a living room accent. Strauss keeps the ones he picks up in a gallon jar. “Each one is like an old photo that stirs a little bit of memory and imagination when you pick it up and look at it a few years later,” he says.
Then there are the diehard fans who strike up a passion for phillumeny, the hobby of collecting matchbooks. Entire Instagram accounts are devoted to sharing unique designs: @matchbookdiaries, @meetyourmatches, and @matchbookcollector. And people pay big bucks for rare matchbooks, including a record-setting $6,000 payout in 2015 for one featuring Charles Lindbergh.
Laurel Prucha Moran takes matchbook fetishization to another level. The Alexandria-based watercolor artist known as @dmvmatchbooks on Instagram paints matchbook designs inspired by local restaurants, bars, and venues. Since she created her first one in 2021, as a pandemic project, Prucha Moran has painted more than 400 different establishments, including Le Diplomate, Tail Up Goat, Andy’s Pizza, and A Baked Joint. Many spots she paints don’t actually offer matchbooks, but she takes inspiration from their social media and website as well as any personal observations she makes during a visit: an accent tiling or general color palette, for example. Often, Prucha Moran is asked to create custom pieces, including those commemorating a favorite college-era dive bar or a set honoring all the restaurants a couple visited on their honeymoon three decades ago.
Despite all this glorification and fascination with matchbooks, they are primarily designed to be utilitarian, mementos with a purpose, tiny tools echoing another time. “Fire is so necessary and primal,” Strauss says. “So I hope people use them, maybe when they go camping or need to light a fireplace.”
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