, 1888-08-11
FIFTY CENTS A DAY.
Meals at City Restaurants During tho
Hot Season-The Menu.

Summer is the season when the cheap
table d'hote hourishes. An immense
number of the regular residents of the
city are turned into q sort of floating
population by the fact that their wives
and families have gone into the country,
and they float in the sense that while
they sleep at home in a darkened house
or linen shrouded flat the hearth fires are
quenched-not to mention those in the
range-and they are reduced TO a sort Of
skirmish for their meals, getting a din
ner at Coney Island today, at a down
town cafe tomorrow, luncheon n y
where from the elegant cafe to the free
lunch counter of a barroom. This sort
of business can be made very expensive,
or n man can live well on fifty cents a
day. Don't believe that2 Well, there's
a struggling young lawyer here who
does it. This is what he says about the
matter:
81 sleep in the house of my cousin,
who is at Newport for the season. Gota
fine four story brown stone affair just of
Fifth avenue, and as she knew l was
hard up she asked me to come and stay
there while she was away, vi the co.'s
ored lady who is care taker of the house
does for me as a part of her duties, a
semi-occasional half dollar rendering her
perfectly reconciled to my presence. 1
am up by s, and on my way down town
l stop at a Sixth avenue bakery that lies
between me and the Elevated. 1t has
one outside room, with chairs and tables,
and you can get coffee-good coffee, too
for five cents n cup. Their Guns are
fresh and hot at that time of the day and
you can get five of them for five cents,
or n sandwich for the same sum, if you
happen to be a hearty eater and require
meat in the morning. If you are a gilt
edged epicure you can get a slice of pie.
But as for me, I'm a plain, homely
minded sort of person, and l find five
buns more filling. So my breakfast costa
me ten cents.
about 1 O'Clock my stomach goes into
executive session and begins to vote
lunch appropriations by reclamation.
There's a place down on lower Broadway,
near my office, that l patronize-indeed,
there are w of the same kind, near to-
gether, but I've a faithful sort of dispo-
sition and 1 stick to the one nearest me.
All the bank clerks and the young and
~impecunious lawyers like myself go to
these places between 1 and 3, but I've
seen lots of men who get their dinners at
Delmonico's come in there hurriedly for
luncheon, and get it for fifteen cents.
You know the millionaires never scorn
to save nickels. It's not so swell as the
bakery. There are no tables or chairs
just a long counter, with big dishes of
everything piled within reach, and every
single thing costs just five cents. You
help yourself to anything you like the
looks of-sandwiches, doughnuts, cakes,
pies, hard boiled eggs, buns, etc.-and
then h man behind the counter passes
you out milk, coffee, tea, lemonade, as
you choose, and that's five cents, too.
"When you're through you tell the
man what you've had, he gives you a
check, and you settle up with the CASH
Ter near the door. l generally present
him with the munificent sum of one
dime and a nickel, and don't go away
hungry, either. That seems like a lot of
confidence to trust the lunchee to tell
how much he has had; but just let any
tramp go in there and try to beat the
management, and he'll find out double
quick whether any ones glittering eye
has been upon him. Summer weather
one doesn't want much to eat while you
are working, but when the day is done
you feel the need of something more
staying han the everlasting buns and
sandwiches; a good square meal, in short,
N+AAA u NAACf NO L Oil BSN NlhAS an
for % cents.
There are half a dozen places where
you can get it, and the menu is not so
bad as you might think. There is soup,
barley, vegetable or consomme; a bit Of
fish, with a boiled potato; lamb, mutton,
veal or beef, some kind of vegetable, y
spoonful of stewed fruit for dessert, or
you may take cheese instead, and then
you get coffee, with bread ad Hbitum,
throughout the meal. The peck of dirt
Is not thrown in, thank Heaven. My
place is on Third avenue, but it's as clean
es the Brunswick. The walters wear
white jackets, but they're white, and the
people see they are all clean and respect
able themselves, for it's the decentest
dinner for the sum that I've ever seen,
and l have had some experience, l car
tell you. l ante up my little American
quarter, n then l am fed for the day
1t the reasonable sum of so cents"
There are twenty nice restaurants on the
good avenue where q capital table d'hote
can be had for fifty cents with a half
bottle of vim ordinaire thrown in, while
the Italian eating places cut it down as
low as thirty cents, but wine is left out.
Actresses out of employment club to-
gether and dine at these places, and by
three ordering for two, which gives them
oil enough, they fare s~umptuously every
day on about the sum usually reckoned
sufficient to keep a bird alive. There are
still better, almost elaborate dinners to be
had for s~eventy-five cents and 81, and at
these places you will find the newspaper
and literary men these hot evenings,
with sprinklings of the professionals and
artists.-New York Cor. Brooklyn Eagle.