The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-06-20
TRUSTING TO MEMS HONOR.
A Novel System OF Collecting Pay From
Eating House Patrons.

Eating House Patrons.
During the breathing spell between loon
and I d. m, when down town business
men Danish for the moment the rush for
competitions OF trade, and start outdoors
after some refreshment to brace their sys-
tens for a enewed tussel with the fierce
torrent Of the city's tremendous traffic,
there gathers in a little dairy in the Pot
ter building, and likewise in n certain
on Broadway. just below Cort-
landt street, says the New York san, a
crowd of hungry merchants and clerks,
who bolt a lot of miscellaneous food in
feverish haste, and afterward bolt ont
doors into the street before the last mouth
fuls of their several rapid transit meals
are fairly devoured. In hundreds of other
eating houses down Town hundreds OF
other business men and clerks similarly
shoot food down their Threats with the
same frantic rapidity, and rush out with
their meal half eaten, after the great
American dyspepsia breeding fashion.
But the thing that makes these two re-
spective assemblages of hungry business
men interesting is the system under which
they secure what they want TO eat and pay
for il when they get through.
Long counters spread plentifully with
all sorts of s~easonable delicacies meet
their gaze at noon when the hungry men
first plunge into the respective eating
~ - sfk hs" "sAH 49,.
along the counter until they see some del
icacy that strikes their fancy and proceed
to help themselves to il without further
do. When they can get IL down their
throats as fast as they can, they wander
to some other part of In eating house
and pick out and devour something else.
There are clerks and cashiers i'm each re-
sort, and they apparently pay no heed to
any of the hungry men. Each customer
is free to go where he likes and eat what
L. Is...
as he feels like consuming.
1t is an interesting spectacle to watch
the crowd maxi the assault on the deli
c~acies, but still more interesting to see
how each business nan squares things
with the house when he thinks he has had
enough.
In the little dairy on Nassau street the
customer walks straight up to the cashier
and rattles off what he has eaten:
Sandwiches. coffee, strawberry short
cake. How much?"
Thirty cents please" says the cashier,
and the customer rattles the money out on
the counter, shoots out of the door and
hurries down the street like n nan bent
on catching a train.
In the Broadway restaurant the method
of settling is for the customer 10 figure
out his own bill. On the walls hang pla-
cards with the price-lists of the foods
painted in distinct letters and figures.
Each customer studies a momcn when
he has finished his lunch. Then he steps
up to n big box OH "A side table and picks
out a check for the amount. The checks
are ranged in rows in little wooden COM
partments so that they can he got at in
stantly. The customer throws this on the
cashiers desk, pays the amount of the
check, helps himself To a t~oothpick, n
walks out. The cashier never questions
the correctness of the check. She takes
the customers word for il every time.
For many months the same thing has
been going on at both these eating-houses.
The system is a novelty to many New
Workers, who are accustomed to get from
restaurant walters a check for what they
have ordered. The new system is called
the 'trusting-to-a-man's-honesty" plan of
quick-lunch service, n il has proved so
profitable that other restaurants I'm this
and other cities are beginning to copy IL.
The broadway restaurant was the first to
introduce the system in this city, and il
was copied by the proprietor Of the dairy,
because he says that he believes in the
principle of treating his fellow-man as an
inherently honest customer. The two
men who have put up the cash to back
this system Of serving the hungry men Of
Gotham claims that 1t pays them well,
and that the percentage pf customers who
deliberately take advantage of the system
to cheat the house and get n lot to eat
without paying for il is SO small that il is
hardly worth noticing.
NuE ioft lToth tuStoIIltTF VIII MUM
down on the cost of their meals" said
the proprietor of the Nassau street dairy,
sis less than 3 per cent of the total re-
ceipts. Such doesn't happen
more than two or three times n week. On
the other hand, hardly n day passes that
some customer doesn't come up TO the
cashier and say: Il mad n mistake in
reckoning yesterday. ! forgot hat ] had
a plate OF beef. Here is 10 cents that i
ought to have paid yesterday"
The manage of the Broadway quick
lunch establishment similarly COM
mended the honesty of the New York eat
ngp public. In thisp particular restaurant,
while the average number of customers
for each day runs anywhere from
Loo to 800, the aggregate loss is
said To he less than 3 per cent.
1.-THE miscalculation or absent-minded-
ness of customers said Manager Fassett.
''cannot be set down as the cause of this
loss altogether. IL includes the food
eaten by the help here. We have four DIFF
ferent departments to the restaurant. and
IL is possible for a customer honestly to
forget to pick up a check in one depart
ment when he has visited more than
department; as, for example, when lie
comes into the liquor department To get a
drink after he has been in the restaurant
department. Our customers come VA
TO us next day in almost every case and
make good the difference. Some
times they walk out with the checks
in their pockets, when they are
thinking OF other business matters.
But they bring these checks bach and set
tie on the same day or the day aftcrward.
| remember once recently that "A we'll
known ex-governor, who had a law case
in court, rushed out one day without set
Ting. He came bach next day and pro-
duced the check and paid il. He thought
IL was rather a good joke"
Manager Fassett said that rs he under
stood il the trustiug-to-a-man's-honesty
system wasn't original in America. II
have been told,' he said, ''that the sys-