On a busy street in Manhattan, there was once a place called Tad's 30 Varieties of Meals -- or possibly Tad's 57 Varieties, or maybe just Tad's. It closed long ago, but the idea was this: diners would pick a frozen meal, take it to their own table, and put it in their new, shiny, space-age microwave oven. Needless to say, it didn't catch on: but there's more history there than you might think.