The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-06-27
TEN CENTS A DAY ENOUGH.
Thanks to the Free Lunch No Man
Need Starve in Large
Cities
Rather Expensive for the Saloons,
But q Great Thing for
the People.
Customers Expect to Find It Even If They
Never Eat It-Where 1t
Came From.

mo man who can beg, borrow or steal 10
cents day need starve in New York." OBJ
served downtown barkeeper to the New
York News reporter, as he directed attention
to a very seedy and dilapidated specimen of
humanity who was handing in his plate for
second service of savory free lunch
stew.
''That man is one of, not hundreds, but
thousands, who are making the saloon
keepers of New York tired. They literally
live off the free lunch counter. They come
in and buy five-cent glass Of beer and
then fill up to the tune of 20 cents worth of
eatables.
s.The only cure We have is when one of
these fellows come around too often to re-
fuse to serve him either with beer or lunch.
They seldom give you an opportunity of do
stick to one regularly, but have list of
twenty or more to cover, and SO you can't
keep track of them. Down town these
gentry breakfast at the fashionable hour Of
ii a. M, when lunch is first served, and
take their dinner at p. m. in any one of
around in the afternoon. In that manner
they manage to corral two fairly substantial
meals and have two beers into the bargain,
and this beats living at the cheap restau-
rants.
"Nor is this all,'' continued the disguised
barkeeper. ''The evil is actually on the in
crease. There are saloons in the neighbor-
hood of Washington Market now that serve
hot free lunch at a. NJ, another at IL
and a third at in the afternoon.
1T isn't always the poor devils who are
little better than tramps who prey on the
free lunch. There is a small army of young
men employed in bankers and brokers' Of
fees in and about Wall street who make
the free lunches in the neighborhood look
sick. They are never seen in a saloon ex-
cept at lunch time, and the total amount of
money they drop is confined to the price of
one glass of beer day, or thirty cents a
week.
"Up town the member of the 'profesh'
who in summer is on his uppers makes love
to the free spread until the season opens"
lis there no way in which to abolish the
free lunch?'' was asked.
.None that I know of. It's too late in
the day now. Every customer expects to
see it spread, though he may never take
more than cracker once in a month him.
self. If he found no lunch here he'd go
where he would find it. We have educated
our customers to it, and we have got to
stick to it,
This appetite for free lunches the bar
keeper alluded to was not natural to the
old-time New Yorker. Like the taste for
Olives. it has been acquired. Twenty-Five
years ago the free lunch was unknown in
New York and twelve years ago it consisted
of cheese, crackers, pretzel and dried red
behring's in the beer saloon. The red her
ring is still in evidence on the east side and
the pretzel holds it's own where Germans
most do congregate. The red herring is an
ingenious device to develope thirst for un-
limited lager.
The idea. Of the elaborate free lunch of
the present day is an importation from
New Orleans and San Francisco. Those
two cities are famed for the magnificent
manner in which they cater to the taste of
customers. In New Orleans they 90 so far
as to serve coffee, while in San Francisco
in the bonanza days, lunch in the neighbor-
hood of the stock exchange consisted of
regular course, beginning with soup and
winding up with the rarest fruit in season,
served at tables by regular walters. The
cost for drink was fifteen cents, whether
it was beer or whisky.
The lunch served in New York saloons of
the best class to-day is not quite so preten-
tious or costly as this, but hungry man
can make very substantial meal from it.
There are two kinds of lunch served, the
cold and the hot.
The cold lunch is served in nearly all the
uptown saloons, though in Harlem on the
east side it is losing ground and is being
supplanted by the hot lunch, which includes
soups and stews in addition to the cold
lunch, and man has to be hired to
serve it.