The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-01-15
The American Restaurant.

ANYTHING of the kind to be found in the
world. The French cafe, the German
beer-garden, and the English chop
house, all have their characteristic hab-
its, appearances and manner, but the
American restaurant is like neither of
them. 1t can only be conducted by an
American, and, we regret to say, it can
only be frequented and enjoyed by
Americans of the second and lower
grades. The aim of the conductor
seems to be to sell the greatest amount
of f cd in the shortest possible time
an aim which the guests Invariably
second, by eating as rapidly as possible.
We have seen, in Broadway restaurant,
a table surrounded by men, all eating
their dinners with their hats on, while
genuine ladies, elegantly dressed, oc-
cupied the next table, within three feet
of them. In this restaurant there was
as much din in the ordering of dishes
and forks, as if brass band had been
in full blast. Every dish was placed
before the guests with a bang. The
noise, the hustle of the hurry, in such
"A place, at dinner time, can only be
compared to that which occurs when
the animals are fed in Barnum's caravan.
We do not exaggei ate at all when we
say that the American restaurant is the
worst hammered place ever visited by
| decent people. No decent American
ever goes into one when he can help it,
and comparatively few decent people
know how very indecent 1T is.
Our best hotels lave no equal III the
world, and, in asserting this, we know
what we say, and "spcak by the card. "
Our best restaurants are mainly kept by
foreigners, or, if not, modelled after the
French type. Nowhere in the world
can there be found better cooking, more
| quiet and Icisurcly manners, or better
service, than in the restaurants of the
hotels above alluded to, or the best
class of eatiug-houseS. These, how
ever are direct or indirect importations,
while the American restaurant, pure
and proper, serves the needs of the
great multitude OF business men
clerks, porters and upper-cass laborers
generally. These do not eat-they feed.
Thousands of them would regard it as
an affection of gentility to remove their
hats while feeding, and they sit down
and order their dinner, which-pud-
| ding, pastry, vegetables and meats
all placed before them in one batch,
and then "pitch in" This lack of
courtesy, of dignity, of the ordinary
tokens even of self.respect would be
amusing if it we're not so humiliating.
1t is useless for the incredulous Amer
lean to ask the question, Where
have you been ?' When in a second
rate restaurant II guest asks for fish
balls aud hears his order repeated to
the cook by the colored water
as "sleeve-buttons for one" and
hears his neighbor's order for pork
and beans transformed into n
"stars and stripes, he begins
TO wonder, indeed whether ciyiliza-
tion" is not ga failure" and whether
"the Caucasian" is not played out. "
The average American, i'll an average
American restaurant, eats his dinner,
in the average time of six minutes and
forty five seconds. He bolts into the
door, bolts his dinner, and then bolts
ont. There is no thought of those
around him, no courtesy to neighbor,
no pleasant word or motion of polite
ness to the man or woman who receives
lis money-nothing but a fearful tax
ing in of ammunitiOn--the feeding of a
devouring furnace and then desper-
ate dash into the open air, as If he were
conscious he had swallowed poison, and
must find doctor and stomach pump,
or die. A favoritc method of devOur
ing oysters is to stand, or to sit on
high stool, always with the hat on
oysters on the half shell and the en- er
under half shell. There may be
something in the position that favors
deglutition, we don't know.
The penalty n man pays for getting
his lunch or his dinner at Il reasonable
price is to encounter the offensive scenes
we have described. The penalty he
pays for eating where he finds the man
ners of civilization is an unreasonable
price. When man pays half II dollar
for bit of cold meat, or seventy five
cents for steak, or a quarter of a dol
lar for couple of boiled eggs, he re.
calls sorrow fully ana wonderfully-if
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