<B>Atlanta, Georgia:</b> When somebody finds an old bottle, they usually just get a look at it and walk on by.   But when a plumber who was digging inside of Kevin Rathbun’s new steakhouse finds one, he stopped Kevin Rathbun in his tracks.   The bottle wasn’t just any old bottle; it was a one-hundred year-old greenish-silverish Lea & Perrins Steak Sauce Bottle.  

Call it luck, or call it what the plumber called it as he held the bottle up…” Must be Fate!” It appears the new space was destined to become a steakhouse.  

The bottle was found as the plumbers were digging the holes for the plumbing at Kevin Rathbun Steak. How do we know that it is a real bottle?   Because in the late 1800’s, the sauce was often copied and to prove that it was an original Lea & Perrins bottle, Lea & Perrins had to raise the letters on the bottle. The impurity (Iron) in the sand resulted in the green color of the bottle. It has the initials of JDS on the bottom of the bottle, which signifies that it was imported by a New Yorker by the name of John Duncan. He was the first United States importer of the product and it was first made in 1876 by the Salem Glass Works, Salem New Jersey. In 1839, Lea & Perrins was the only commercially-bottled condiment and the Americans loved it .    

Kevin Rathbun says, “I think this building was destined to be Kevin Rathbun Steak.   There hasn’t been any digging in the building in many many years, so the bottle has sat in the ground since the early 1900’s.   Somebody must have been enjoying a steak sandwich for lunch one day and had the sauce with it”.  

For additional information, please contact Cliff Bramble or Kevin Rathbun at 404.524.8280 or visit the website at www.kevinrathbunsteak.com .   An image of Kevin Rathbun can be taken from http://rathbunsrestaurant.com/images/kevinphoto.jpg . Additional information   on Lea & Perrin can be taken from http://www.artofflavor.com/about.cfm?catid=4073.

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