Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-05
INJURIES THE TRADE.
Saloon Keepers Find the Eating
Business Very Improbable.
A FEW BLUFF AT OBEYING LAW.
How Legitimate Restaurants Are Knocked
Out by the Brooks Act.
THE CHANGERS FOND OF FREE LUNCHES

If the License Court Judges were to allow
the opinion of restaurant keepers any
weight they (the Judges would likely
modify their views on the subject of max
ing booze dispenser a restauranter at the
same time. By the edict requiring saloon
keepers to iced people as well as saturate
them, 307 restaurants are added in this city,
but few of which realize revenue sufficient
to give justice to patrons who do not patron
ize the bar. The case of a tavern is not
parallel, as in some of these places where
license is granted strenuous effort to get eat
ing custom would not realize sufficient to
pay employees, to say nothing of cost of food.
But these saloon keepers must keep public
table also, and how is it done?
THREE KINDS OF HAsHEoUsEs.
Some are managed so that no one calls the
second time for food, and others are merely
endured as disagreeabie necessity, and
guests charged prices that make them chary
of returning for anything except liquid re-
freshments, and in either case these classes
do not accommodate the eating public. A
third class honestly obeys the mandate OF
the court, and provides good food and serv-
ice, but it Injuries those in the restaurant busl-
ness regularly, and that only. Were the
restaurant condition not applied to the Keeping z
OF the 307 saloons in the city. it is computed
that their custom would make a profitable
business for 25 simon-pure restaurants where
everything would be satisfactory to the eating
public. whereas the present regulatlve is
scarcely satisfactory TO anyone.
When Judge White ran the License Court
he was rigid in his opposition to the free lunch
arrangement in saloons, but at present 1t is a
conspicuous feature in most of them, and
restaurant keepers in the business part of the
city say it hurts their business more than the
com blnaJion saloon and restaurant, Tor many
saloon keepers, while sighting the paid food
department, furnish free lunch equal, if not
superior, to it, and as the custom of many OF
| their bar patrons is worth 81 day or more they
can afford to allow them lunch once or twice
day equal to the charge for meals.
There are hundreds of people IN business, one
| way or other about the Diamond market, who
eat full meal every DAY at free lunch
ruling drank less and went to regular eating
| house for dinner.
THE CUSTOM CATERED TO.
One caterer in the market house says the
present arrangement deprives him of more
than 25 per cent of his custom. This is not the
| hummer custom-not the class that asks you tc
| give a nickel or dime in order that he can gel
| a glass of beer as an introduction to the lunch
| but the custom of wel-to-do business men anc
| some farmers who daily come to the city to
| dispose of their tarm produce.
| 1t does not follow that all farmers who vote
| for prohibition in their rural homes are op
posed to the maintenance of the saloon in the
| city. In fact, they want it there, and find it:
when, by Spending Quarter for drink they cal
| step up to lunch counter and ea
square meal' composed of nearly or quite
| the same number of dishes they could find in
| restaurant. These vIrtuous ruraliSts do mo-
want the communicating influence of saloor
| in their sylvan solitudes but the same institu
| tion in the city is quite another thing, anC
| many drink regularly in order to get the lunci
| who otherwise would only take little win,
| now and then for their stomach's sake wheI
they actually need it, or fancy they do.
| A good many people think many more expert
ments must be tried before the proper way o
dsposing of the Hquor-selling problem is de
| cided satisfactorily.