The Dinner Bell was a popular Ocean City restaurant in the years following World War II. Located on the southeast corner of 3^rd Street and Baltimore Avenue in the Monticello Hotel, it served homestyle cooking with an Eastern Shore flavor. Many still remember their delicious fresh baked rolls and fried chicken.

The waitresses lived in a dormitory style room at the Monticello and their room and board was part of their employment package. Former waitress Beverly Rice recalls, “50 cents was considered a really good tip back then. We were lucky if we made $3 a day but that was a pretty good money for a waitress in 1949.”

The Dinner Bell closed in the 1960s and the Monticello was torn down in 1999 — two more memories of a “Vanishing Ocean City.”

Photo courtesy Beverly Rice