By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
BOSTON – Only the incomparable Bette Arnold could have forced the question, are you talking about her car or her restaurant? She, along with her signature vehicle (a yellow Rolls Royce) and restaurant/nightclub, Bette’s Rolls Royce, were often the topic of conversations during the 1970s and distinguishing one from the other caused confusion at times.
Photo/Digital Commonwealth/Warren Favor
Fond memories from patrons
Located on Union Street near Faneuil Hall, Bette’s Rolls Royce served $1.25 cocktails for two in 1974 and chopped sirloin or soused shrimp for supper while, on occasion, Arnold serenaded her customers. The food, music and atmosphere ensured a steady stream of loyal regulars.
Lucy Giorgio-Pirker recalled on Facebook:
“The best place for cocktails and peanut shells on the floor. Spent a few New Years’ celebrations here—the bomb! Oh, to be young! Ha, if walls could talk!!! Teehee… remember the Royce and the tickets!!!”
Martin Broderick added:
“Great lady. Had a great piano player named ‘Charley.’”
Before opening her restaurant in 1971, the effervescent Arnold sang with the Chappie Arnold Orchestra, a big band ensemble formed by her first husband. It was during this time she first discovered her gift for management after lining up gigs for the band.
Entrepreneurial aspirations
As a graduate from Simmons College with a degree in psychology, Arnold longed to help other women with entrepreneurial aspirations. She and her husband Chappie founded a bus company after realizing many kids did not have transportation to school and invested in real estate before turning their sights to opening an establishment offering the “best fun, best food, and best booze in town.”
The Brighton native also hosted dinners at the State House and coordinated Christmas dinners for disabled children. The Arnolds eventually divorced but remained friends even when she remarried in 1975, until Chappie’s death in 1988.
That was the restaurant and nightclub but then there was the matter of Bette Arnold’s legendary automobile—a 1963 canary yellow Rolls Royce that was constantly illegally parked outside her restaurant. Every day, she would illegally park her car in front of the restaurant and every day the police gave her at least four parking tickets. In those days, however, police did not keep a strict record of parking tickets. Plus, college students had a habit of pulling tickets off cars, especially those with out of state tags so that visitors wouldn’t know they got them.
Car attracted walk-in business
The toast of Boston claimed her luxury car drew people from around the world looking for a good time in the city and that keeping it parked outside the restaurant was responsible for the majority of her walk-in clientele. The city disagreed and one judge even ordered Arnold to pay her fines via certified checks instead of her favored personal checks which sported an image of the car. One year, Arnold even requested a jury trial to fight her tickets and brushes with the law. Many may also recall seeing Arnold perched on her Rolls Royce clad only in a green body stocking during Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parades.
Arnold sold her restaurant in 1980. Bette Jeanne Arnold Charles died at the age of 90 in 2011. Her daughter Judith A. Cowin, a retired justice of the supreme judicial court, admitted modesty was not her mother’s strong suit. Cowin added that her mom was flamboyant and did not care about the rules but had a huge heart and praised her for being a super mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Arnold had another daughter named Joyce (Jackie) who died in an automobile accident in 1970.
The woman who loved life and people once said in The Boston Globe, “I have had a great time. I’m up 20 hours a day. Who needs sleep? Sleep you’ll get plenty of in eternity.”
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