The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-01-16
The American Restaurant.

The American Restaurant.
The typical American restaurant is
an establishment quite as we'll individ-
ualized, and quite as characteristic, as
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 al only be conducted by an
American, and, we regret to say, it a
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,od in the shortest possible time
an aim which the guests invariably
second, by eating as rapidly as possible.
We have seen, in a 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 a 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 exaggel 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 it is.
Our best hotels have no equal in the
world, and, in asserting this, we know
what we say, and "speak 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 leisurely manners, or better
service, than in the restaurants of the
hotels above alluded to, or the best
class of eating-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-oIass laborers
generally. These do not eat-they feed.
Thousands of them would regard it as
al 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 were not so h~umiliating.
1t is useless for the iDcredulous Amer
lean to ask the question, "Where
have you been ?" When in a second
rate restaurant a 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 a
"stars and stripes" he begins
to wonder, indeed, whether "civiliza-
ton" is not ga failure" and whether
"the Caucasian" is not played out"
The average American, in 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
out. There is no thought of those
around him, no courtesy to a 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 furnacC-aud then a desper-
ate dash into the open air, as if he were
conscious he had swallowed poison, and
must find a doctor anda stomach pump, |
or die. A favOrite method of devour-
ing oysters is to stand, or to sit on a
high stool, always with the hat on;
oysters on the half shell and the q er
under a half shell. There may be
something in the position that favors
deglutition, we don't know.
The penalty a man pays for getting
his lunch or his dinner at a 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 a man pays half a dollar
for a bit of cold meat, or seventy-five
cents for a steak, OF a quarter of a dol
lar for a couple of boiled eggs, he re-
calls sorrow fully and wonderfully-if
he has ever traveled-the nice little
breakfast he used to get at madame Di-
joins in Paris for two francs, his din
ner in the Palais Royal for three francs,
his daily board, with rooms, at the
Pension Picard, in Geneva, for five
francs, II MS Luxurious apartments |
with an elaborate table d'hote at all the
principal hotels of the continent for 10
francs. Is there any necessity for such
prices as we are obliged to pay at the
best restaurants-Or an apology for
them? Any man who keeps house, and
does his own marketing, knows the first
cost of the expensive dishes placed be-
fore him in these restaurants, and he
knows there is no just relation between
the cost and the price charged, after all
the allowances has been made for cook
ing, service, rent, etc.
Sometime or other there will be a
change, we suppose. When the times
of initiation are gone by, when on one
side men will content themselves with
reasonable profits, and on the other,
money comes harder and slower, we
shall have a reform of prices in the bet
ter class of eating houses. Our expec-
tations in regard to the second-rate
places are more indefinite. it takes
several generations to train a people to
ideas of retrenchment and good man.
ners at the table. The average German
has nothing to boast of yet in this res
pect, and we can only hope that the
American, with his greater sensitiveness
and quicker instincts, will reach the de-
sired point before him.-Scribncr,S.