Capital History Ottawa (#colourized): Bowles Lunch [Updated]

My latest for Apartment613 is on legendary Ottawa diner, Bowles Lunch! 

"The atmosphere was masculine, loud, and often bawdy. Asking a woman to enter Bowles was an insult. Acceptance would cause serious damage to her reputation." (Ottawa Citizen – Dec. 26, 1981)

Read all about it here: Capital History: Bowles Lunch, 1917 to 1957

Rideau St. looking east across Sussex Dr., 1937. Bowles Lunch Rideau St. outlet on the right. [Orig. image via Library & Archives – colourized by Ashley Newall]

*New: Updates (2025-26)...

Here's a colourization not included in my original 2021 story, but which should have been.

Bowles Lunch, 50 Rideau St. (a couple doors east of Union Station), 1921. [Original image via Library & Archives – colourized by Ashley Newall]

And here's the same location around 1957, after it had become a Scott's Restaurant. (Bowles' other Ottawa location – on Sparks St. – ultimately became a Scott's Chicken Villa (i.e. KFC). Scott's Restaurant on Rideau closed and the building was occupied by other businesses prior to being demolished around 1967.)

Scott's Restaurant, 50 Rideau St., ca. 1957. [Image via Ottawa Archives]

Finally, here's a few more newly discovered exterior images of Bowles' two Ottawa locations, plus a few new and improved colourizations of the interiors...

Bowles Lunch, Rideau St., Ottawa, 1921. [Orig. image via Library & Archives – colourized by Ashley Newall]

Bowles Lunch, Rideau St., Ottawa, 1921. [Orig. image via Library & Archives – colourized by Ashley Newall]

Bowles was known for their one-armed chairs. (Some tables were added later.)

Bowles Lunch, Rideau St., Ottawa, 1921. [Orig. image via Library & Archives – colourized by Ashley Newall]

View of Rideau St. from Chateau Laurier, viewing east, 1938. Giant Bowles Lunch neon sign visible centre-left.

Rideau St., viewing east, 1954. Bowles Lunch sign visible centre-right. [Postcard via Ilia Ekchhout]

Rideau St. viewing east from Chateau Laurier, 1957. Bowles Lunch building (behind the streetlight cluster) has "Scott's Coffee Shop" sign on it. [Image via Toronto Archives]

Ottawa Citizen building on Sparks St., decorated for Royal Visit, 1939. Bowles Lunch next door, on left.

For an interior design description, over at the Bowles location on King St. in Toronto (which opened in 1915), the lunch room décor is contemporaneously described as "finished in cream white veined statuary marble, with a light Formosa marble base; the tiling above in tones to harmonize, while the pattern on walls and ceiling are brought out with rich ivory. The lighting is of the semi-indirect type, in this instance using genuine alabaster globes which result in a most pleasing warmth of color." [Construction Magazine (Vol. 8, no. 3), Feb. 1915 ed.] 

(Bowles maintained consistent interior & exterior design styling / branding across all their outlets.)

Bowles Lunch, Sparks St., Ottawa, 1917. [Orig. image via Library & Archives – colourized by Ashley Newall]

Ottawa's Sparks St. location also had a billiard room, as was the case at multiple Toronto locations. The Toronto King St. billiard room was decorated "with panels of leather and painted fabric, the stripping and cap mouldings in walnut." [Construction Magazine (Vol. 8, no. 3), Feb. 1915]

Billiard room: Bowles Lunch, King St., Toronto (1915). [Via Construction Magazine (Vol. 8, no. 3), Feb. 1915 ed.]

Scott's Restaurant and Scott's Chicken Villa (i.e. KFC) in previous Bowles location on Sparks St., Ottawa, 1961.

"Western Day on Sparks St. Mall", 1967. Former Bowles Lunch location had become a Scott's Chicken Villa, which was also evidently a TAVERN! [Orig. image via Library & Archives – colourized]

Once more, full story on Bowles Lunch in Ottawa here: Capital History: Bowles Lunch, 1917 to 1957

*NEW article on my blog, on a Bowles Lunch outlet in Toronto: Bowles Lunch Toronto – Queen St. at Bay St., 1915-1957

For more historical colourizations, you can follow my "Capital History Ottawa" on Twitter / X @CapHistOttawa. (*Now also on Facebook, Instagram, & Bluesky.)