Tag Archives: sanitation
Washing up
“Please don’t make me a pearl diver,” begged ruined Chicago restaurateur John Raklios as he entered debtors’ prison in 1939. As someone who had worked his way up in the restaurant world, he knew there was no job lower than … Continue reading
Filed under history, restaurants
Dipping into the finger bowl
Once upon a time finger bowls were routinely presented with the check in expensive restaurants. To the average American, who probably never went to this type of restaurant, they were a great source of humor. Jokes typically involved an unsophisticated … Continue reading
Filed under history, restaurants
White restaurants
Whiteness in restaurants has had multiple dimensions. When it swept through the lunchroom industry in the early twentieth century the obvious intent was to denote cleanliness through the liberal use of marble and porcelain table tops and counters, and white … Continue reading
Filed under history, restaurants
Taste of a decade: restaurants, 1900-1910
It is the dawn of the modern era of restaurant-ing. Patronage grows at a rate faster than population increases and the number of restaurant keepers swells by 75% during the decade. Leading restaurant cities are NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, … Continue reading
Filed under history, restaurants
Decor: glass ceilings
There’s a couple of reasons why I’ve been thinking about glass ceilings in restaurants this week. I took a look at the total number of visits to my top posts and, apart from the various Taste of a decade posts … Continue reading
Filed under food, history, restaurants
Taste of a decade: 1940s restaurants
During the war (1941-1945) the creation of 17 million new jobs finally pulls the economy out of the Depression. Millions of married women enter the labor force. The demand for restaurant meals escalates, increasing from a pre-war level of 20 … Continue reading
Filed under history, restaurants, Uncategorized
“Eating healthy”
Restaurants (and their critics) have often shown concern with patrons’ health, but the focus of concern has varied widely in different eras. In the 18th century the idea that restaurants had a mission to restore health came to this country … Continue reading
Filed under food, restaurants
Rats and other unwanted guests
It would be unusual to find an advertising card from an American restaurant with such a humorous attitude toward rats as shown on this French postcard. Here we see the “rat who is not dead,” a play on The Dead … Continue reading
Filed under restaurants
We eat in restaurants several times a week and yet know very little about their history. I plan to dip into my archive of research and images every so often to present a little tidbit that highlights aspects of our American restaurant culture. Let me know your thoughts.
