The University of Houston includes the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. As a result, the archives of the University of Houston Libaries include a variety of old menus that show what hotel and restaurant patrons long ago could eat. You can browse high resolution images of several menus here.
One thing that I found surprising was the concept of "breakfast wine." Barnum's City Hotel in Baltimore had a wide variety of options. Drinking spirited beverages before noon? How scandalous!
-via Boing Boing