Category Archives: waiters/waitresses/servers

March 5, 2023 · 10:46 am

Dining . . . and wining?

Americans have not been big wine drinkers historically, so sommeliers (aka wine stewards) have not been commonplace. There were French sommeliers in New York in the 1870s and later, but it’s likely they were wine merchants and specialists in maintaining wine cellars rather than part of restaurant staffs.

Nevertheless the fine restaurants of the 19th century, such as Delmonico’s and some hotels, made a point to offer wine and almost certainly had someone on their staff capable of ordering, storing, and recommending wines to diners.

But, however many or few wine experts worked in American restaurants, they were put out of business by the advance of Prohibition. Their numbers gradually grew after Prohibition ended in December, 1933. By that time the restaurant industry was hanging by a thread and eager to get back into profitable business with the sale of wine and spirituous liquors.

Articles from the 1930s reveal just how unfamiliar the American dining public was with wine. A columnist mentioned that the Fred Harvey company was busily creating a wine list for its deluxe restaurant in Chicago’s Straus building in the months leading up to Repeal. The story ran through a few basic pairing suggestions such as whites with fish and reds with beef, adding, “One never drinks beer at a swank dinner.”

Restaurants that planned to serve wine, such as Karl Eitel’s in Chicago, were furiously stocking their cellars then. Two days after Repeal, Eitel’s waiters scrambled to catch up with customers who ordered wines that were out of stock. They were instructed to offer orange juice as a substitute for the missing vermouth. Eitel himself expressed annoyance at the waiters’ lack of knowledge about how to chill wine properly (ice has to melt a little before it will cool a bottle).

At Repeal, French wine shippers had hopes that the U.S. would expand their market, but according to one insider, the ambassadors they sent to this country came back full of pessimism, convinced that Americans much preferred liquor and soft drinks.

The relatively few restaurants wanting sommeliers usually had to hire Europeans, as they were the ones with the finest training, or any training at all. The Vendome in Los Angeles, for instance, brought a sommelier from Monte Carlo’s Hotel de Paris in 1934. But even a couple of years later there were said to be fewer than a dozen professional sommeliers in this country.

And it was already evident that the popular attitude toward them was less than worshipful. For a start the word sommelier was a barrier which, in the words of one wit, “can’t be correctly pronounced unless you’re either drunk or French.” [See Word of the Day cartoon below for a guide] And the chain worn around the neck suspending an oversize key and tasting cup was often ridiculed – except as jewelry for women, who were said to make off with them. Their attractiveness inspired the jewelry maker Monet to produce a simplified sommelier-style necklace and matching bracelet in the 1930s, which remained popular into the 1950s.

The happy sommelier in this country was one who managed to get a dedicated tip from guests who truly appreciated his (rarely her) recommendations. Few newspaper columnists showed respect for them, excepting O. O. McIntosh. In 1938 he explained that he loved the rituals associated with the sommelier’s work, such as twirling bottles in an ice bucket, displaying labels, wrapping bottles with napkins, and extracting and sniffing corks. He declared it “a magnificent ritual and one the gallop of American life should not trample.”

It was more typical for commentators to make fun of it all. One made suggestions on how to respond to a sommelier’s proud display of a bottle: “. . . it is good to respond by fitting a monocle to the eye, studying the label and issuing appropriate clucks and ‘hmmms.’ This has become an obligatory art form in certain restaurants . . .”

The sommelier’s primary role in the view of the restaurant industry was to get people to buy wine by the bottle. Behind the scenes, in industry journals and books, the depiction of wine sales could be crudely oriented toward profits, with the sommelier’s skill directed toward an estimation of the diner’s insecurity or wish to celebrate. A 1968 book on wine merchandising in restaurants saw a skilled sommelier as “merchandising in motion” and useful for “giv[ing] class to your restaurant.” And a trade magazine article on how to merchandise wine in restaurants carried the tagline, “A Meal Without Wine is a Meal With Less Profit.” As was demonstrated by comparing two checks (shown above), wine drinkers were said to be fond of pre-dinner cocktails also.

One of the strongest motives for restaurant guests to value advice about wine was, and undoubtedly still is, not to look foolish in the eyes of others. A Napa Valley winery owner reported that an experimental wine tasting he held for his Harvard Business School classmates in the 1960s revealed that “They weren’t particularly interested in learning anything about wine, except for how to order it without being embarrassed.”

In 1940s NYC, sommeliers were still rare and could mostly be found at luxury restaurants such as Jack & Charlie’s 21 Club, The Colony, Chambord, Pierre’s, and El Morocco.

Their numbers likely increased in the 1950s, but were there really any golden years for sommeliers? Not if you asked NYT food critic Craig Claiborne. He declared in 1961 that sommeliers had lost their status, and were no longer involved in buying wine and supervising restaurant wine cellars. “The number of old school sommeliers in New York can be counted on the fingers of one hand,” he declared.

Some sommeliers, perhaps in reaction to ridicule, tried to avoid being showy. The French sommelier at Maxim’s in Paris (in Chicago), despite the honors he had won, stayed in the background and rejected wearing the long chain with a key because he found the custom pretentious. Judging from her 1972 advertisement, Georgette of Baton Rouge LA also departed from the traditional sommelier costume.

In the 1970s waitstaff captains at New York’s Four Seasons took over the role of sommelier. They were trained by one of the restaurant’s knowledgeable owners and given wine at their meals so they would be familiar with it. This would have satisfied critics who complained that many sommeliers had never tasted the wines they recommended.

Today, Las Vegas may have the most sommeliers in this country, however I’d guess that most restaurants elsewhere have done away with the costuming and ritual, relying instead on trained servers to make wine recommendations.

© Jan Whitaker, 2023

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September 11, 2022 · 1:41 pm

Black waiters in white restaurants

In the 19th century Black waiters staffed most Northern restaurants and hotel dining rooms, particularly as hotels grew larger and better appointed beginning in the 1840s. Earlier, Black waiters in the North were mostly employed in private residences or for catered events.

Before the Civil War, the hotels were run on the American plan where meals were included with lodging and served family style. Mealtime was often a mad scramble, putting waiters under great pressure to bring out the dishes. They were often ridiculed, or seen as having no other virtue than being imposing-looking in uniforms.

After the Civil War, when the tipping custom spread, they were suspected of being interested solely in tips. Nevertheless, jobs as waiters were sought after and those who held them were highly respected in Black communities. Headwaiters, occupying a role similar to that of maitre d’, enjoyed the highest status.

A number of Black waiters rose in their profession and took the role of advisor and trainer of their fellow servers. An early example was Tunis Campbell who published The Hotel Keepers, Head Waiters, and Housekeepers’ Guide in 1848. He presented the headwaiter’s role as similar to an officer whose troops need a lot of drilling lest they became undisciplined and boisterous when facing a mob of impatient guests. His advice was put into practice, judging from an English traveler’s description of a remarkably choreographed scene in the 1850s. He reported that, “At a given signal, each [waiter] reaches over his arm and takes hold of a dish . . . at another signal, they all at the same moment lift the cover, all as if flying off at one whoop, and with as great exactness as soldiers expected to ‘shoulder arms.’”

Some patrons preferred Black servers to white ones, and it was said that the better restaurants and dining rooms of the post Civil War period preferred them to whites, particularly the Irish. But praise was often blended with condescension. A prominent Chicago hotelier noted that Black waiters were the “best.” But he added, “They are waiters by nature, and are peculiarly adapted to servitude.” Another admirer of Black waiters commented in a similar way: “White waiters always have an idea that they are doing a man a great favor if they serve him promptly and are polite and respectful. Colored waiters know their place and keep it, give themselves no airs, and take no liberties.”

Never did it seem to occur to white commenters that the best Black waiters had actually chosen to dedicate themselves to their profession and constantly improve their skills. Nor that they were performing a role rather than conforming to their nature.

Unsurprisingly, given the lack of a wide range of job opportunities, many Black men were known for their long tenure as waiters. Still, it is interesting that a Chicago restaurateur noted with surprise in 1899 how many Black waiters “find their way to the variety stage.” Perhaps they had been drilled in the Campbell method. [Blaney Quartette poster, 1898]

The position of headwaiter was especially coveted, particularly if a Black man was tall and impressive looking in a uniform, often a tuxedo in the 20th century. However, although some remained, by then the position of Black headwaiter was being replaced by restaurant owners and hostesses taking over the job of greeting and seating guests.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a white backlash against Black Americans generally reduced work opportunities even further, threatening Black predominance as waiters. Immigrant men arriving in this country proved willing to accept jobs as waiters. However, there was a notable reason to favor Black men, one that hindered them at the same time. As a Black waiter explained in 1903, for Black men being a waiter was “usually the zenith of his industrial possibilities” and because of this there was strong competition among them for these positions. This allowed hotels and restaurants to pay them less than white waiters.

By the 20th century, white women also took jobs serving in restaurants, often replacing Black men. Actually, though, the Fred Harvey organization may have pioneered the shift from Black men to white women. In 1883 the men – considered troublesome – were replaced at one of the eating houses on the Santa Fe Railroad line, launching the phenomenon of the “Harvey girls.” Unlike white women, Black women were not often found waiting in white restaurants, but were more likely to be working in the kitchens. When they did occupy waitress roles, white patrons seemed to enjoy seeing them dressed in mammy costumes.

Black waiters organized mutual aid societies and employment bureaus as early as the 1820s, but many were skeptical of labor unions. When strikes failed, their distrust was intensified and they felt they had been betrayed by the white unions, particularly after losing their jobs and being replaced by white men and women. A failed strike at a lunchroom chain in Chicago in 1903 was long remembered with bitterness. Leading Black waiters supported advancement for Black waiters, but not of joining unions. John B. Goins wrote in his book (The American Waiter, 1908) that “unions will never be of any benefit to a colored waiter.” In an even stronger vein, he advised, “Keep out of strikes. If you are asked to join in a strike for better wages refuse point blank. And I would advise you to offer to quit; but first explain why you do so, stating your reason for quitting is to keep out of strikes.” His ally, Forrest Cozart (author of The Waiters’ Manual), was another strong proponent of improvement, urging Black waiters in American plan hotels to learn to read and write because such hotels were disappearing. [Forrest Cozart shown below]

Though there were still an appreciable number of Black waiters through the 1920s, competition with whites increased during the Depression of the 1930s. Then, even native-born whites who had long objected to taking service jobs began to compete successfully, significantly reducing the number of Black waiters.

After World War II, when the economy had improved, dining out for pleasure increased substantially in this country. Black waiters discovered that they were often shut out of waiting jobs in fine restaurants where there was a chance to make good tips. Possibly, though, Black waiters were favored in Southern restaurants such as the elegant Justine’s in Memphis, which hired a strictly Black waitstaff from its beginnings in 1948 until closing in 1995. The restaurant made much of the fact that many of its waiters stayed on the job for many years, yet there were signs of dissatisfaction on their part such as walkouts and complaints about low wages. Many had full-time day jobs.

A 1985 case study found that, unlike immigrants, Black men were not eager to be waiters in low-priced restaurants and that they were not often hired in the better eating places. How much this was due to racist attitudes on the part of managers and/or patrons was not clear. But the study noted that even “when the supply of European waiters fell during the sixties, New York City’s full-service sector did not hire blacks into these relatively high paying jobs, but used artists and actors instead.”

By 1970 Black servers, either male or female, made up only 16% of all waitstaff according to research by Dorothy Sue Cobble (Dishing It Out, 1991).

© Jan Whitaker, 2022

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December 19, 2021 · 12:23 pm

An early French restaurant chain

Sometimes you need to leave your own country in order to get some perspective on it. Along with going back in time, that is what I’ve done. I’ve gone to France — though only through texts and pictures — to explore a restaurant chain begun in the 19th century known as Bouillon Duval.

I tend to think of the United States as the home of restaurant chains, and that they are quintessentially American. There is some truth to this, but it is also full of blind spots as the existence of the Duvals shows. They came before American chains, and showed that a highly rationalized, business-like approach to running restaurants is not solely American. [pictured, rue Poissonniere, 1882]

Looking at Bouillon Duval, which began as a soup restaurant, also dispels a bit of romanticism about French restaurants. As much as Duvals emphasized quality, they were eating places for the frugal masses, not temples of haute cuisine. In the beginning they were meant for poor workmen, but soon they became popular with the middle class. To put it in the language of the day, the “black coats drove out the blouses” who were embarrassed to be in the presence of the better dressed.

The Bouillons were the idea of Baptiste Adolphe Duval. He had a butcher shop in Paris and came from a family that ran a brasserie in the north of France. According to legend, around 1857 he opened a small soup restaurant near his shop using the unsalable meat scraps, and went on from there to become fabulously successful and wealthy. By 1867 he had eight Bouillons Duval in the city as well as at least one at that year’s world’s fair.

Of course it wasn’t quite that simple, and he might have failed if it hadn’t been for his wife’s assistance. According to the most thorough account of the chain’s development, the business was headed for failure as soon as it expanded beyond the small shop. With an enlarged menu and a lot of ideas, M. Duval had moved to a location in a former ballroom on the rue Montesquieu [shown at top of page in 1882, when it had reinstated male waiters]. There he installed a steam-heat system of cooking, along with elaborate piping that served every table with seltzer water. Both innovations were disastrous failures that cost a fortune to tear out. Add to this the lack of an accounting system that made it hard to calculate sales and permitted chiseling on the part of employees and the business was soon drowning in debt.

His wife Ernestine helped set up an accounting system and suggested replacing the questionable male servers with married women of irreproachable character who she dressed in uniforms resembling nuns’ habits [pictured, 1902]. The business began to show a profit and soon expansion was underway. Not surprisingly, when M. Duval died in 1870 shareholders chose Ernestine to take over the corporation and expand it further.

The Duval company had incorporated in 1868, by then consisting not only of eating places but also its own butcher shops, slaughter houses, bakery [pictured, 1882], large laundry, and caves that stored wine.

The company achieved heroic status in 1870 when it somehow managed to stay open during the “Siege of Paris” when German forces surrounding the city cut off food supplies. Their continuing in operation was significant not only for providing meals but also in boosting morale. In 1900 the French government awarded the Duvals’ son Alexandre, then manager, with the medal of the Legion of Honor. By then the company ran 32 restaurants.

The Duval system was based on keeping prices low while serving a large volume of customers quickly and efficiently. It was thoroughly a la carte right down to an extra charge for a tablecloth if wanted. During the Siege a London man recorded what he ordered at one of the 14 Duvals. He and his companion ordered bread for 1 cent, potato soup for 2 cents, as well as roast mutton, puréed potatoes, green beans in white sauce, and a pint of Mâcon wine. The total bill – with tablecloth – came to 18 cents. [Above, a menu that was to be filled out by the customer, ca. 1882; See The American Menu blog for several Duval menus.]

Needless to say, the fact that wine and other alcoholic beverages appeared on menus set the Bouillons Duval apart from most early chains that later developed in the U.S., such as Childs.

Numerous Americans as well as English citizens frequented the Bouillons when visiting Paris [above, diners at the 1878 Paris International Exposition; the objects with handles on the tables are menus], and expressed a wish to have something like them in their own countries. In addition to serving quality food and decent wine at low prices they were known to be spotlessly clean, quite unlike most of the cheap fixed-price cafes that working people had frequented before the Bouillons came along. The major criticism against them was that portions were small. Some critics said that if a hungry diner ordered all they wanted they would find that their bill was as expensive as in a finer restaurant. Other guests complained about the crowds and the “deafening din of knives and forks clinking against plates and dishes.”

Nonetheless the Bouillons Duval were invariably recommended in guide books for visitors to the international fairs held in Paris in 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1900. In 1878 the Duval restaurants were said to have served 5M meals that year. Pictured above is one of several Duval locations at the 1889 Exposition.

At some point a Bouillon Duval was opened in London, and in the 1880s there was one advertised in Los Angeles that offered “hot soup and schooner lager beer, five cents.” I couldn’t determine whether it was connected to the Paris restaurants or not.

The last mention of the Paris Bouillons Duval I found was in 1924, when the chain was still said to be all over the city.

© Jan Whitaker, 2021

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October 17, 2021 · 12:38 pm

Dining at the Centennial

In 1876, one hundred years after independence, Philadelphia held America’s first world’s fair to celebrate the country’s growing importance in industry, trade, and the arts, and perhaps implicitly to recognize of the end of the Civil War.

It is notable, though, that no Southern states elected to participate. According to a historian who studied the South’s attitudes toward the Centennial, it’s likely that relatively few visitors from the South attended [“Everybody is Centennializing”: White Southerners and the 1876 Centennial, Jack Noe, 2016]. This was due both to inability to afford it and a widespread opinion reflected in Southern newspapers that the whole thing was another Yankee scam meant to benefit the North.

Another problem was that the entire country was moored in a severe six-year-long depression. Despite the drawbacks, however, the Centennial Exhibition was judged a big success, based on its efficient organization, the participation of many other countries, the range of exhibits, and the attendance over its six-month span which was reported as nearly 10 million.

When I began to think about exploring the topic of eating places at the Centennial I imagined that its restaurants and cafes would have been a novelty to many visitors who would have been delighted to experience them, with many having their first restaurant meal.

I was not prepared for the large number of criticisms, ranging from offense at snooty European waiters to complaints about menu prices and tacked on service charges. They began to pour out as soon at the Centennial began. High prices were the main target. A widely circulated Chicago Tribune story claimed that a meal could easily cost $4, with $1 charged for asparagus, and 50¢ for mashed potatoes. These were prices that rivaled fine restaurants in New York City such as Delmonico’s.

There were at least 20 restaurants and cafés on the grounds. Several seated thousands. George’s Hill Restaurant, a Kosher eating place, was capable of serving an astounding 5,000 patrons at a time. Of course most fair goers could not begin to afford these grand restaurants, each of which occupied its own massive building. Many probably found it difficult to pay even the 50¢ admission fee.

The complaints about restaurant prices leveled off a bit over time, and it may be that the Centennial Commission forced managers to lower them. Or, perhaps there was a compromise leading the big restaurants to devote part of their space to lower-priced cafes, as seems to be reflected on the menu from the La Fayette Lunch Garden shown above, part of the La Fayette Restaurant complex. There a sandwich was a mere 10¢.

Regardless, one effect of all the publicity about high prices was that many fair goers brought their own picnic lunches [see cartoon above]. Soda and popcorn stands also proved to be very popular, as did the Vienna Model Bakery which furnished no meals but served coffee and freshly baked bread, both of a quality Americans had not experienced before. Another popular eating place was a moderately priced rustic café called The Dairy [shown below] where milk, fruit, biscuits, and pies were available.

Actually, the entire organization of the Centennial discouraged working people from attending. From the start the Commissioners decided against Sunday openings and half-price Saturdays, both of which had been operative at recent world’s fairs in Paris and Vienna. Only after disappointing attendance in the unusually hot summer months did they relent and declare a handful of Saturdays eligible for discounted fares. When the weather cooled off and attendance increased, they eliminated the discounts.

The dominance of elite restaurants at the Centennial may have been part of the same plan of discouraging, or simply ignoring, working class patrons. Perhaps the restaurant that was most resented was the “Parisian” restaurant, Aux Trois Frères Provencaux [shown here and at top]. It had a famed past dating back to the 18th century, though, unbeknownst to most Americans (if they even vaguely knew of it), it had changed hands many times, lost much of its splendor, and closed several years before the Centennial.

The Trois Frères Provencaux and the five other big restaurants at the Centennial were set up much like first-class restaurants and hotels of that time. They had large main dining rooms, a big banquet hall, a number of smaller private dining rooms, and a café. It’s likely that some of the buildings also included living quarters for the staff.

Most of the big six restaurants came in for some degree of criticism, with only George’s Hill and Lauber’s being largely exempt. George’s Hill Restaurant, on a breezy hill with a beautiful view, may have offered relief from the heat, and perhaps its customers appreciated having a kosher restaurant on the grounds. Lauber’s was already a popular Philadelphia German restaurant and it promised that its prices at the fairgrounds were identical to downtown’s.

Faring less well in public opinion were The Grand American Restaurant (disliked for its employment of foreign waiters) and The La Fayette [shown here]. The latter was perceived as a French import despite the fact that the proprietor had a restaurant in New York City. Its building was considered unattractive and its waiters were alleged to cheat customers. As was also said of the Trois Frères Provencaux, a critic claimed that its French management was unable to “comprehend America.”

The other large eating place, the Restaurant of the South [shown here], seemed to be predicated on a fascination that Northerners would have with Southern culture (including an “Old Plantation Darkey Band”), along with the belief that Southern visitors to the Centennial would want to group together in their own place. But if it was the case that few Southerners visited the fair [Noe, cited above], this would probably have taken a quite a toll on the Restaurant of the South.

In addition to meals, most restaurants and cafés also served beer and wine, despite the attempt by temperance organizations to prevent this. A California winemaker brought his wine to the Centennial to introduce it to Easterners. For $1 he also offered a “copious luncheon” with a half pint of his “California Golden Wine,” which was considered quite a bargain by the standards of the fair. Although it seems that all the cafés and restaurants had beer and wine, it’s probable that beer sales far outstripped wine sales, judging from the final report of the Centennial Commission which reported no royalties on wine.

Which was the most American restaurant? Not the Grand American, which Scribner’s magazine declared had “nothing especially American about it,” but the American Lunch Counter. Associated with railroads – where lunch counters were the norm in stations – it was ridiculed by elite critics such as one in The Nation who pointed out “the excessive liberality of the bill-of-fare as compared with the actual resources of the kitchen, the negro or nondescript waiters, the unlimited pickles,” etc. The Nation’s account included the other two restaurants advertised as American — The Grand American Restaurant and The Restaurant of the South — in its complaint.

I’m left with questions about the restaurants at the fair and the fair itself. How many people actually attended? Each person had to pass through a turnstile that counted them, but since many people made multiple visits, it leaves the question whether there were 10M visitors, or 10M visits. Given that the Commissioners’ detailed final report did not show any royalties from restaurants or cafés, I can’t help but wonder if the restaurants lost money.

But surely, since many thousands ate at the fair’s restaurants, there must have been some who had good experiences.

© Jan Whitaker, 2021

For more images of the Centennial buildings and exhibits, visit the collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

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July 12, 2021 · 11:49 am

Hash house lingo

Odd – often humorous – names for simple restaurant orders were long associated with cheap eating places such as hash houses, beaneries, and lunch wagons. In addition to inexpensive food, patrons got free entertainment, while newspaper reporters never ran out of light copy.

In cheap restaurants it was customary through much of the 19th century and early in the 20th for servers to convey orders to the kitchen by shouting them out from the dining area. It’s highly likely that many, maybe most, of the servers as well as the cooks, were unable to read and write.

The colorful stories began to fill papers’ pages in the 1880s. In 1881 U.S. President Chester Arthur was reported to have visited a “coffee and cake saloon” in lower Manhattan – probably Hitchcock’s — where waiters shouted out his order of coffee and rare corned beef to the kitchen in slang.

Judging by how often it was repeated in the press, the public was endlessly amused by the tale of the clever Bowery hash house waiter who bested the patron who tried to confuse him by asking for two poached eggs on toast by adding that he wanted the yolks broken. Without a pause, the waiter shouted out “Adam and Eve on a raft. Wreck ‘em.”

Eggs merited the most jargon of all foods, probably because there are so many ways of preparing them. Two terms remain in almost universal use today and are so commonly used that probably no one suspects they were once regarded as unfamiliar waiter slang. I’m sure you will spot them easily in the list of egg orders.

Many of these terms make no sense at all, and some have more than one reference. Why were they used? Clearly they are not necessarily shorter or easier to yell than if they were straightforward. According to the 1945 article Soda Fountain Lingo, “An exclusive language – racy, picturesque, humorous – understood only by the initiate, adds zest to the monotony. Further, it lends pride to the job and provides an esprit de corps. It gives incentive to the new waiter, mystifies the general public, and furnishes satisfaction to the enlightened professional hasher.”

Eggs
Ham and eggs – Kansas City chicken and Adam and Eve
Scrambled eggs — Adam and Eve shipwrecked; Agitated eggs; Storm tossed eggs; Eggs around the curve; Wreck Noah
Scrambled eggs with chili sauce – Ship wreck in the Red sea
Scrambled eggs on toast – Wreck on a raft
Fried eggs unturned — With eyes open; Sunny side up; Straight up; Two white wings turned down
Fried eggs turned over – In the dark; With a black eye; Over easy; Eyes closed
Fried eggs scalded in hot grease — Blindfold two
Poached eggs – Sleeve buttons
Poached eggs on toast – Two ladies on horseback; Adam and Eve on a raft
Soft boiled eggs – A light on the ocean wave; In the sea/ocean
Hard boiled eggs – A light under the waves; Two in the water like a brick

Meat/fish/main dishes
Dozen oysters stewed plain — Drown a dozen
Dozen oysters in the loaf — One in the coffin
Oyster stew – Two in a bowl; Stew-o-o-oo
Chicken stew — Springer in the mud
Corned beef hash – Brownstone front (can also refer to pancakes); Mystery
Wienerwurst and sauerkraut — A Dutchman’s paradise
Ham and beans – Ham an’
Beef and beans – Beef an’
Beans – Plate of Bostons; Thousand on a plate
Baked beans without the pork — Brass band without the leader
Beefsteak – Patent leather; One sole without a shoe
Mutton chops – Whiskers
Codfish ball – Sinker (also refers to doughnuts and to pancakes)
Spring chicken on toast and boiled potatoes — Foul tip and a hot grounder
Fried catfish (quickly) — Railroad a hot swimmer

Other
Macaroni — A son of Italy; Put up the flag
Buttered toast — Butter the gash
Pancakes — Brownstone front; Brown the wheats; String o’ flats; Stack ‘em up
Pancakes and coffee – Bootleg and sinkers
Buckwheat cakes – Brown the buck
Hot biscuit — Order of the boat heels
Doughnuts – Sinkers; Life preservers; Fried holes
Shredded wheat biscuits and a glass of milk – Couple o’ bales of hay & squeeze the cow
Milk toast – Cemetery stew
Chicken soup – Hen in the bowl
Slice of watermelon — The Red Man
Mince pie with powdered sugar on top — Indigestion in a snowstorm
Pie a la mode – Freeze out; Snow on the open face
No gravy – Make it dry
Keep it hot – In a hot box

Beverages
Hot tea — Cup of China; On the Chinaman
Tea without milk – Hong Kong on crutches
Iced tea — One in the mountains
Cup of coffee — One in the dark; Draw one
Glass of milk — One in the light; Squeeze the cow
Ice water – One Arctic

Customers often contributed to the lingo by inventing their own, both for ordering and asking someone to pass something.
Pass the sugar – Give the sand box a kick down this way
Request for butter – Pass the dope
Milk – Drive the cow down this way
Beans and molasses – Short and sweet
Fried pigs’ feet – A Trilby foot [Trilby was a popular 1894 novel about an artist’s model with beautiful feet]
Coffee and doughnuts – Slop and sinkers
Sandwich with a liberal allowance of ham – One boxing glove with plenty of lining

Hash house lingo died a slow death in the 20th century with the arrival of automated eating places, cafeterias, and other serve-yourself places, and was pretty much gone by the 1930s. It has been artificially revived here and there as a novelty attraction, the former Ed Debevics diners being a prime example.

© Jan Whitaker, 2021

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May 2, 2021 · 4:34 pm

Tableside theater

Is tableside service the kind of glamour that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny? It may be a noble tradition in French restaurants, but in the United States it’s another story. Depending upon how you look at it, it can be fun — or it can be understood as a way to charge more for lower quality food.

I haven’t been able to determine how common tableside service was in 19th-century America. But clearly chafing dishes were employed long ago, especially where oysters were served. A widely circulated story from 1843 described a man staying at a fine hotel in New Orleans who was outraged that he should “cook his own victuals” when he ordered a venison steak and the waiter brought a chafing dish for him to prepare it in.

How times change! By the mid-20th century, restaurant guests were delighted to prepare food themselves with a hibachi or fondue pot.

One of the most flamboyant sorts of tableside service is the presentation of food on flaming swords. It represented the consummate display of tableside theatrics, particularly at Chicago’s Pump Room of the late 1930s and 1940s. Master of ceremonies Ernie Byfield asserted that he preferred to host “laughing eaters” rather than “grim gourmets.” He was quite frank about the degree of pretense involved with tableside service at the Pump Room, implicitly acknowledging that formal French service was out of step with mainstream American culture. [Pump Room flaming swords, 1943]

Tableside service as entertaining floorshow got a foothold in American restaurants in the 1930s. By then, according to an essay by A. J. Liebling, Prohibition speakeasies had introduced middle-class New Yorkers to “a pancake that burned with a wan flame,” a reference to Crepes Suzette.

The popularity of flames at the table and other forms of tableside food preparation grew in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The full show was described by the proprietor of the Bubble Bar in Akron OH in 1952: “Just as your Flaming Sword Dinner is about to be served, the Rajah (that’s my assistant) and I dim the house lights and approach your table, sword in hand aflame with choice morsels of lamb, beef tenderloin or chicken. . . . And of course, following such an adventure in dining, you wouldn’t think or dare to order any dessert but our Flaming Cherry Jubilee or Flaming Crepes Suzette.”

Alas, a look behind the scenes quickly dissolves whatever magic adheres to tableside drama. The 1974 how-to book Showmanship in the Dining Room leaves little doubt that tableside service in all its forms — whipping up sauces, tossing Caesar salads, serving beef from shiny rolling carts, flaming things — is all about money. The book builds upon the wisdom articulated in a July 1966 issue of Cooking for Profit that asserts that, for “the table-cloth operation,” service is the prime merchandiser. Tableside service, goes the thinking, makes customers feel important and willing to pay more for what is often food of lesser quality or quantity.

Here are some of the magic-dissolving points made in the Showmanship book:
– The rolling cart has a virtually unique benefit. It allows the restaurateur to sell items he could not otherwise sell.
– Wines on a cart allow the waiter to push particular bottles. Few people can resist when a bottle is held before them with the waiter’s recommendation.
– Coffee can be served by a specialist. For some inexplicable reason customers accept an individual dressed like an Indian maharajah much more readily than a native of a coffee-producing country.
– A casserole item with a low food cost, such as curry made from turkey thighs, which could not be readily sold otherwise, can be merchandised from a self-service chafing dish on the table.
– As a general rule, carving in the dining room gives the operation a better yield; The carver becomes proficient at making less meat look like more; the waiter can divide a piece of meat that is less than the sum of two individual orders.
– If flambéing is done properly, the customers enjoy it and willingly pay for it. In most instances, it does not harm the food very much at all.
– Any waiter who can light a match can flambé a dish.
– Nothing about the perennial flambé favorites, crepes Suzette and cherries Jubilee, is exciting except the showmanship.
– But people like sweet tastes, and people like flames. The combination is seemingly irresistible, as it sells at menu prices so exceeding the cost that they would make a desert water vendor blush.
– The matronly waitress might be able to flambé successfully . . . but she may look domestic making a steak tartare and resemble a washerwoman when tossing a Caesar salad.

Let the patron beware!

© Jan Whitaker, 2021

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March 7, 2021 · 8:02 pm

Fred Harvey revisited

As many readers probably already know, particularly if they’ve seen the Harvey Girls movie with Judy Garland, Fred Harvey was the prime architect of a company begun in 1875. Harvey ran what were once called eating houses serving passengers and workers along the route of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad. [above: staff of the Raton NM eating house, ca. 1900]

Largely due to the movie, Fred Harvey — the man and the company — has been turned into a myth about providing the first good meals for train passengers and, in the process, civilizing the West. The myth was crafted mainly in the 20th century, and has rarely been challenged. As such, the Harvey enterprise has also been hailed as an example of the first restaurant chain.

I have looked carefully at the company’s first 25 to 30 years and have found many ways in which the actual history challenges the myth. Almost certainly the meals provided by Harvey’s eating houses were superior to much of what was available in the West. Yet, this is an exaggeration in that it leaves out how often eating houses on other railroad lines were praised. [menu, Las Vegas NM, 1900]

And, although Harvey’s meals were better than average in the 19th century, “the Harvey system . . . represented a utilitarian approach to meeting the needs of travelers and railroad company employees” (History of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway; Bryant, 1974). Some of the early dining spaces were far from elegant, located in simple frame buildings, or even fashioned out of train cars. [Deming NM lunch room, ca. 1900]

Viewed as a model of a successful modern restaurant chain, the Harvey case demands a closer look. Harvey had a close relationship with the vice-president, later president of the Santa Fe line, W. B. Strong, and enjoyed a sweetheart deal with the railroad. Essentially he could not fail, even in the early years when the number of patrons of his eating houses was small. Railroad passengers going West in the early years were of two classes. One was tourists who could afford to travel for enjoyment. The second, people moving West, were classed as “emigrants.” They were of lesser means and carried food with them because they could not afford to buy the meals, which were high priced.

The railroad’s primary business was freight; passenger traffic was light. The 44 Harvey houses then in business each fed an average of only 114 per day in 1891. It is striking to compare this figure to that of an admittedly very busy restaurant in NYC, which often fed 8,000 patrons a day in 1880.

In a number of ways the railroad operated like today’s cruise ships in terms of its relation to the surroundings, stopping briefly to refuel, get water, and let passengers off for meals. Using the railroad to transport food, supplies, and workers from afar by train – all at no cost – was what sustained the Harvey eating house business. Additionally, the beef used by Harvey eating houses was supplied from Harvey’s own ranch, and shipped for free (a practice known as deadheading) to slaughterhouses in Leavenworth KS and Kansas City MO and back to his kitchens. This drew the ire of local butchers and ranchers who had to pay high rates to ship their cattle. As Stephen Fried reported in his thoroughly researched Appetite for America, Harvey co-owned a ranch of 10K cattle with Strong and another railroad executive.

Newspaper editorials in several of the towns where Harvey did business railed against his practices. A paper in Newton KS called him “one of the worst monopolists in the State” because he brought supplies from Kansas City rather than buying from local merchants. Conflict about the same issues in Las Vegas NM was ongoing as the town struggled to prevent Harvey from supplying his own meat. Bitter complaints were made from people in Albuquerque as well, especially when two box cars were delivered and painted yellow to serve as a make-do restaurant. High prices for meals were widely criticized by local patrons.

Employees in the Harvey system included very few local people. Many were immigrants from Europe, especially the cooks, though the waitresses tended to be U.S.-born, and were selected by employment agencies in cities. Myths have celebrated how the “Harvey girls” married ranchers and helped populate the West (indigenous Indians and Mexicans aside). But in fact the servers were semi-indentured, with half their pay held back for 6 months to keep them from leaving the job. Not only was this meant to discourage resignations due to marriage but also to discourage the practice of working for a short time and then requesting a transfer farther west, all in the effort to finance travel through the West. [Photo of dining room server, ca. 1890s]

In terms of pleasing patrons, Harvey’s food was widely praised. But Santa Fe passengers were not really satisfied. What they disliked about the eating houses was basically that they existed at all. As an article in Scribner’s inquired, “Why . . . should a train stop at a station for meals any more than a steamboat should tie up to a wharf for the same purpose?” Passengers would have much preferred to eat on the train rather than to rush through their meal in 20 minutes – or, worse, to have mealtime delayed for hours when trains ran late. But the three largest railroads, including the Santa Fe, had made a pact not to introduce dining cars because they were huge money losers.

The pact began to break down in the late 1880s, but when the Santa Fe decided it wanted to run dining cars on through trains, Harvey got a court injunction preventing it, claiming it would violate his contract. After several years, the injunction was lifted when Harvey was awarded the contract to run the dining cars. [California Limited advertisement, early 20th century]

Despite many of the myth-challenging realities of the favorable circumstances Harvey enjoyed, he did introduce some practices common to modern chain restaurants. His was a top-down organization based upon standardization and strict centralized control. Each eating house was run like every other, with goods, employees, and services selected according to the same methods. In the early years, Fred Harvey personally visited and inspected all restaurants. Later supervision was taken over by managers, accountants, and a chef, who operated from the central office in Kansas City. By contrast, other railroads contracted with individual operators to run their eating houses as they saw fit and sourcing food locally, which produced excellent results in some cases, but limited menus and unappealing food in others.

It’s not surprising that the Harvey myth persists like so much of Western lore. Alas, it is extremely difficult to correct legends. When facts depart from a legend, John Ford, director of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, concluded with resignation, “. . . print the legend.”

© Jan Whitaker, 2021

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October 18, 2020 · 4:52 pm

Maitre d’s

As the name suggests, “maitre d’hotel” (hotel master) tended to be used most often in hotels. In a large enterprise a maitre d’hotel would supervise multiple headwaiters, each of whom had charge of service in one of its multiple dining spaces. Those could include a formal dining room, a supper-room, a grill room, banquet rooms, and/or a café lounge. Over time, the positions of maitre d’hotel and headwaiter were collapsed into one, yet both terms remained in use.

The man (99.9% of the time) playing that role became the public face of a restaurant or hotel dining room. Like celebrities, he was often known by one name only. A counterpart of the chef who ruled the kitchen, he ruled the front of the house. In addition to being completely in charge of the dining room and its service, he might hire, train, and supervise the entire waitstaff as well as plan private dinners and banquets, take reservations, admit and seat guests, make recommendations and take orders, and prepare special dishes at the table.

Whether called maitre d’hotel or headwaiter, historically the person filling this role was an imposing physical figure, large, tall, and very well dressed. In this country during the 19th century the role was most often filled by a Black man, usually working in an American-plan hotel where meals were included in the cost of lodging. [L. D. Houston, shown here in 1904, worked in New York and for a time in Hong Kong where he went to escape U. S. racism.] Dressing the part was essential. During the 1930s Depression a nightclub performer in Paris entertained his audience by describing a headwaiter as “The only man in the place whose clothes fit.”

The maitre d’hotel (shortened to maitre d’ over time) or headwaiter could have a wide variety of duties depending upon the size of the dining facilities. An expensive, full-service restaurant that was French or international might have captains, waiters, wine stewards, and busboys in addition to a maitre d’. In the 20th century, a popular maitre d’, having reached the pinnacle of the waiting profession while working for someone else, might look for partners or backers and become the host of his own restaurant.

A prominent example of someone who worked his way up from waiter to owner/maitre d’ was the late Sirio Maccioni of New York’s famed Le Cirque. Other well known maitre d’s — who stayed at their posts for about 50 years each — were “Oscar” and “Hoxter.” Oscar Tschirky of the Waldorf was said to be the first to rope off a doorway, while Stansbury Hoxter of Boston’s Parker House was known for his smile and his infallible memory. [Portrait of Stansbury Hoxter courtesy of his great, great, great nephew James Bell.]

Although some maitre d’s who had immigrated from Europe arrived with hotel school training, usually the headwaiter/maitre d’ reached his position after considerable time working his way up the dining room hierarchy. He may have begun as a busboy or waiter, then advanced to captain of a group of waiters, and finally to headwaiter. Along the way he would have proved his ability to judge a guest’s social status, underwritten by his astute understanding of human behavior. It was expected that he not only remembered regular guests’ names and faces, but also knew their favorite dishes.

Although many Americans probably never encountered a maitre d’, he became a figure in popular culture. In 1927 the debonair Adolphe Mange played one in a silent-era rom-com.

While it’s true that favored guests at luxury restaurants appreciate the services of a maitre d’ who saves them “their” table, treats them with great care, and knows their likes and dislikes, many Americans have not reacted well to what they regard as haughty judges of their social rank who may treat them poorly or even turn them away. Despite the geniality of well-liked headwaiters, to many people the overall impression created by this personage is a feeling of cold formality. According to a 1940 opinion piece in a restaurant industry journal, diners did not like bowing nor “that type of waiter service that constantly rearranges your bread-and-butter-plate and water glass . . . and then frequently walks by your table to see if you are eating properly.”

That may be why in more recent times even an upscale, expensive restaurant probably does not have a formally dressed maitre d’ greeting guests. That role is more likely to be filled by a younger person, frequently a woman, who probably does not run the entire dining room nor hire the staff. She may nod her head as she hands guests a menu but does not bow.

© Jan Whitaker, 2020

 

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September 6, 2020 · 4:48 pm

Lunch in a bus station, maybe

In November, 1961, new Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) rules took effect requiring all interstate bus terminals to integrate their lunch and waiting rooms. The new regulations went against Jim Crow laws in the South that required separate “white” and “colored” facilities.

Although travel on interstate buses had been integrated by the ICC in 1955, the regulations had not covered restaurants or restrooms in the terminals.

The new rules were issued just months after the Congress of Racial Equality organized “Freedom Rides” with groups of Black and white members who rode buses to Southern states — Alabama and Mississippi in particular — with the intention of challenging segregated bus station facilities. In May, 1961, the Freedom Riders were attacked by violent white mobs who beat them and firebombed one of their buses while it was stopped with a flat tire outside Anniston AL. [photo above]

Twelve days after the ICC rules took effect a Black journalist, Bettye Rice Hughes, set out on a bus trip through the South to observe firsthand what had changed – and what hadn’t. She was a graduate of Lincoln University in Jefferson City MO where she majored in journalism. She and her husband, Albert Hughes, a photographer for the Associated Negro Press [ANP], lived in Los Angeles. She was a reporter for the ANP, but it is unclear if that was her job at the time of her tour. In 1964 she was editor of the women’s page of the San Francisco Sun-Reporter. That year she took part in a panel at a conference on Black writers sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966 she left the Sun-Reporter and may have moved to New York City. I was not able to trace her any further than that. [photo: Bettye Jean Hughes at 1964 conference, talking with LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)]

Her six-week tour took her through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and part of Mississippi. Her story, “A Negro Tourist in Dixie,” was published in April, 1962, and continues to be read today.

The bus she took avoided going through all but a corner of Mississippi – where it made no stops – and her tour did not include Louisiana, the birthplace of segregated railroad travel.

In her report of the bus tour it’s clear that she is a close observer, paying attention not only to the reaction of white people to her, but also to the reaction of other Black people, on the bus and in the stations, including kitchen workers. Clearly she is an object of curiosity, but also hostility. “I felt that the threat of violence was always there – particularly in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama – but somehow it never erupted,” she writes. She is served in the lunch rooms, though often grudgingly. On a couple of occasions she has to insist on her right to eat in what were still considered by many to be “white” lunch rooms.

The first direct challenge to her presence in a lunch room came at a Greyhound station in Florence, South Carolina. There, the white cashier as well as a white counterman yelled at her to go to the station’s other lunch room, “the one for you.” She stood her ground, despite her growing fear, and succeeded in getting served, but the episode filled her with dread about the next stops. During the encounter, white patrons, she noted, were silent and “pointedly staring at their food.” In Tallahassee FL, the “problem” of serving her was solved by having a Black cook do it.

Throughout her experiences in lunch rooms she felt the eyes of Black travelers on her as much as those of whites, though evidently few dared to order food. She concluded her essay expressing hope that Black passengers would assert their rights in the future and that white Southerners would become accustomed to eating in lunch rooms with them.

I was curious about how lunch room integration proceeded in other parts of the South that she did not visit, and how things developed after her tour. I found that in quite a few cities officials refused to integrate, insisting that local Jim Crow laws took precedence over ICC rulings. The major of Shreveport LA put it bluntly: “We don’t care about the ICC.”

In Birmingham, the manager of the Greyhound cafeteria was fined and given a suspended sentence for allowing Black and white people to be served together. The manager of the lunch counter in the McComb MS bus station took down the signs indicating separate lunch rooms but refused to serve five Black customers in what had been the white room. When they began banging on the counter for service, a gang of white males ran in and attacked them as well as chasing off a TV cameraman.

In some cities and towns local authorities closed their bus stations’ eating facilities rather than integrate. Federal authorities stepped in and prevented Birmingham from closing its Greyhound restaurant. But in Crossett AR a lunch room closure left a Black woman traveling with a 2-year old stuck on a Continental Trailways bus with little food for two days in a snow storm. White passengers had found rooms in a local hotel, but the hotel told the Black woman they were full. After a radio station ran a story about their plight, Black families offered a room and neighbors brought “enough food for a banquet.”

By the time Bettye Hughes’ essay came out, it was generally possible for Black travelers to get a meal in a Southern bus station, though resistance continued in some places. An Associated Press story declared that Virginia and the Carolinas had accepted bus station integration, but Birmingham had integrated “in name but not in practice.” It also reported that Black people were staying away from bus station restaurants generally. They knew they still were not welcome.

© Jan Whitaker, 2020

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April 5, 2020 · 6:38 pm

Dining during an epidemic: San Francisco

After spending time isolated or constrained in any way people tend to become impatient and want to break loose. That’s what happened in San Francisco during the “Spanish” flu of 1918, especially as the number of cases began to decline.

It was understandable, especially when World War I ended. Everyone wanted to celebrate. Unlike most U.S. cities, San Francisco – with about 500,000 residents — was a city with a flourishing nightlife. Restaurants remained open throughout, even in October when flu ravaged the city, but the music and dancing that was often featured was banned when the number of cases rose sharply in the middle of October. Solely for the week ending October 26, reported cases had reached 8,682.

Because of the increase in cases, the city ordered all waiters and bartenders to wear masks [see above October 27 advertisement], shortly thereafter urging everyone to wear them. But then the number of cases began to decline. For the week ending November 9 they were down to 2,200. Although that seems like quite a lot, San Franciscans were beginning to relax.

On Armistice Day, November 11, the city went wild. In a story headlined “San Francisco Romps Through Greatest Joyfest World Has Ever Known,” the Chronicle reported that hundreds of thousands had poured into the streets parading with noise makers, spontaneous singing, even improvised costumes. The city lifted the flu ordinance that had canceled music and dancing. But whether they had music or not, restaurants and bars were packed. Glamour spots such as Tait’s, the St. Francis Hotel, and the Palace Hotel [shown above] overflowed as did the non-glamourous eatery Coffee Dan’s.

Oddly enough, it appears that despite the overflow crowds in the streets, bars, and restaurants, a surge in flu cases did not occur. On November 21 the Board of Health authorized the removal of masks with a whistle blast at noon. People drank toasts in hotels and restaurants, while others crowded into ice cream shops. On November 25 the city declared the epidemic officially ended. People planned for Thanksgiving as usual and looked forward to the Christmas season.

But it wasn’t over. With war’s end, troop ships began returning to the city. Among the troops were enough new cases that on December 7 the mayor reinstituted the wearing of masks. This time most people ignored the order. Merchants hoping for a strong shopping season wanted the threat downplayed. The masking order was lifted 11 days later, even as cases continued to rise. On a single day, December 30, 540 new flu cases and 31 related deaths were reported. Then came . . . New Year’s Eve.

As was true on November 11, there was no stopping the celebrations. Packed trains brought revelers from neighboring towns and states where wartime alcohol bans were still in effect. San Francisco’s hotels were booked, its restaurants fully reserved. The next day the Examiner reported that the celebration was the “Greatest in History of Bay Region,” calling it a “Victory New Year’s Eve” with thousands from out of town. It was almost as if “the whole Pacific Coast and interior neighboring states sent their quotas,” said the Examiner. Among the crowds were many thousands of soldiers and sailors. Hotel dining rooms were full. The Palace had three orchestras, as did Tait’s and Techau Tavern, each of which took 1,500 reservations. The States, Portola [1918 advertisement], Solari’s, and the Odeon [1918 advertisement] were also packed and the same was true in the Latin quarter and other neighborhoods. Dancing continued until 5 a.m.

By January 8, 2,969 new cases had been reported just since the start of the new year. Two days later a new masking order was issued by the mayor who told the newspapers, “After San Francisco had successfully stamped it out the infection was brought to us once more by persons coming here from other cities.” It wasn’t until March 1919 that the city’s death rate returned to its usual level.

© Jan Whitaker, 2020

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