The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-09-09
San Francisco Mining Stocks.
LUNCHEON FOR FIVE CENTS.
a San Francisco Restaurant Where
the Customers Wait on Themselves.
(San Francisco Chronicle)


There is now in San Francisco a
clean. respectable place, where any
woman who chooses can secure a
substantial luncheon for 5 cents.
The scent restaurant for women is
down in the heart of the wholesale
quarter of the city, close to the big
factories and canneries and markets
1t was opened by the Young WOmen's
Christian association and is never
closed except on Sundays and holt
DAYS. 1t is under the supervision of
Miss Farrell who began her work as
a mere school girl, but who has met
with extraordinary success in her man
agenent, running without friction the
entire mechanism, by means of which
between 200 and 300 are daily dined-
for the bill of fare, simple as it is, is
a dinner to most of those who partal1e
of II. The actual daily average of
patrons of the restaurant this summer
is 275. and on occasions it rises as high
as 500. Five women. the cook and her
assistant. a maid of all work, a tea
and coffee passer and Miss Farrell
make I'D the entire working force of
the establishment. which is a model of
its kind in all the functions which it
undertakes. There's an example of
SyStematized industry for youi
The restaurant is a model in an
other way. too. 1t has dispensed
with all complexities of service and
that little well. The dishes are not
cleaner in SherTy's in New York In
no home is the food more wholesome or
more honestly prepared, yet it wisely
limits its fare to three dishes daily, a
thick bread and butter sandwich a
cup of tea or coffee each day in the
week, with juicy roast beef and rich
gravy on Monday, baked beans and
sometimes soup on Tuesday, stew or
cold cOrned beef on Wednesday, SOUP
potatoes on Friday. and baked beans
and stew on Saturday. The bread,
graham and white. is the best in the
city. the butter always sweet. the
whole milk served in the coffee and
tea is rich and fresh and pure There
are no walters for the tables, but each
patron must call for her own plate at
a window. although, when she has
finished. she may leave the dishes on
the table. where they will be gathered
up and washed in the kitchen, then
ranged on the shelves. ready for an
other day. The restaurant opens for
business at IL o'clock and closes at 2
The women come from the glove
factories. the tobacco factories, the
paper box factories, shirt factories, and
cannerieS- There are clerks and label
erS, StenOgrapherS and bookkeeperS
among them, but rarely, if ever an
idle woman. The restaurant, conduct
ed on the most economical possible
plan. is run at loss of about 90 Is
per cent.
At 11:30 o'clock the large. dimly light
ed room is still empty. but it has a
waiting aspect. Soon the door swings
on its hinges and there straggle in,
singly or in pairs. quiet. ladylike girls
and women. fairly we'll dressed, who
hold Office positions at small salaries
and who plan to come early to avoid
the rush. The most of them lay
nickels on the table, receiving in re-
turn the red ticket which entities them
to the full course. the plate Of meat
or stew. with the big bread-and-bu
sandwich lying on it. and the cup of
tea or coffee. Occasionally one carries
a little paper package and only places
a couple of pennies on the table or
waits for change from her nickel. re-
ceiving a. blue ticket, emitting her to
the cup of something hot to drink. -
to accompany the lunch which she has
put up at home