The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1890-06-14
CHEAP RESTAURANTS.
Those OF Boston Afford nm Extremely In-
terestIng study.


Those OF Boston Afrord nm Extremely Tn
tcresslnR study.
The eating-house Of Boston that Is,
the very cheap eating affords an
extremely entertaining study.
| Its distinctive characteristics, OF
course, are simply representative Of the
indigenous peculiarities that belong to
good st. Botolph's town. Boston's cheap
restaurant is n great deal unlike New
York's. 1t can hardly be called in any
case the resort of loafers or the rendez-
vous of rowdies. Yet the amount of
palatable food that one can secure in
Boston for very little money is truly
astonishing.
fremont row in Boston accurately
typifies the Bowery of New York, but
there arc no cheap restaurants there.
In the North and West Ends, and in
certain portions Of Soutk Boston the
cheap restaurant flourishes, but 1t is a
peculiar kind of cheap restaurant. 1t
doesn't look for or get very much tran
sient trade. In these districts are the
homes of the very poor of the city, and
the custom of the restaurants is pretty
regular and steady, what there is of it.
Leading through, or Immediately ada
cent to the narrow space known as the
business portion of the city, are streets
that get an immense volume of traffic,
and on these streets the thriving cheap
eating-houses are situated.
The famous joke about Boston's bean
eating habits is no exaggeration.
The number of hard-working men and
women in Boston who breakfast on
beans, brown bread and coffee, and sup
on beans, brown bread and tea, is very
large indeed. Boston is pre-eminently
the city of furnished rooms and board
men who work all day in shops and
stores and live alone in furnished rooms
in Boston is matter of statistical record.
Nevertheless, the cheap restaurant is
very we'll patronized, and to stranger
in the city, ignorant of the towns repu-
tation and unaccustomed to its original
ways, the common spectacle of respecta-
BILE women of all ages dining alone in
cheap restaurants is rather surprising.
Even to one who has lived in New
York and observed the free-and-easy
what startling to come across women in
the cheap restaurants in Boston. But
this feeling soon wears off when one
discovers that women in Boston do with
out comment of any kind what women
of other cities don't think of doing ex.
cept in spirit of intellectual defiance.
And withal the women of Boston are
modest and well-bred.
The cheap restaurant of Boston is
nearly always clean. In many cases it
is kept by a woman, and it quite uni
formly sells honest food. In the bus-
ness portion of the city the "business
mems lunchroom' is quite numerous,
and the Temperance dining-room" has
achieved marvellous success.
In the cheap restaurant the shabbily
dressed diner is the exception rather
than the rule. The fundamental distinc-
ton between the very cheap restaurant
of New York and that of Boston seems
to be that the one is patronized by the
wretched wanderer and the other by the
daily laborer.
Tho tramp in Boston this year has
kept pretty we'll out of sight, although |
an official of the almshouse at Tewks-
bury told the writer that the institution |
was overcrowded before the beginning |
of the year. In point of cheapness Bos-
tons cheap restaurant isn't quite |
the equal of New York's, but is there |
any record of living at small expense |
that can match the following supper.
for which the writer paid fifteen cents
yesterday: Cold roast pork, mashed |
potatoes baked beans, a bowl of coffee
and three slices of white bread.-F. j.
in Christian Union.