The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-02-17
THE BUSINESS woMAN's CAFE.
A Proprietor Declares Tint the En-
terprise Pays Well.

| 1-HyA we'll
| The independence OF downtown. self
| supporting womanhood in the beginning
| was marred by the obtrusive question.
Where shall self-supporting womanhood
| lunch?" On the one hand was the tradi-
tional glass of milk and wedge OF pie;
on the other we're the restaurants for the
men. in many OF which women were not
even tolerated. There was plain case Of
| the want of lunchroom for the feminine
| sex, particularly place where they could
get warm midday meal for price with
in their means
BUSINESS girls cannot afford to pay %
| cents for cup of chocolate fee the wait
| er like amount, and then be openly
sneered at by that imperial creature be-
cause they do not spend 81 in his cafe 1t
| is not to be thought Of
"Oh. that women were worth consider
| ing!' the girls said.
Demand makes supply and supply makes
| demand. That is also the law Something
let us say thought vibrations for they
are the fashion-prompted young woman
says an exchange, who was a born and
bred cook and housekeeper to open a
small lunchroom for the downtown bust
ness girls. They fiocked to II like hungry
angels as soon as they found out about it.
The little room was outgrown, and Miss
Dunno removed to larger quarters. Here
the budding enterprise received a slap in
the face and was almost ruined. A man
opened a cafe underneath it and the girls
fed Women could not go in and out and
up and down over a saloon. and that ended
it. The proprietress picked up her belong
ings, soup pot. gridiron, and coffee urn. and
set them down in a new place For the
third time there was the miserable get
ting used to new surroundings"
The unique undertaking again fiourished
after time. however and its success dis
proves several moldy and disintegrating
libels. The first is that women will not
patronize and support their own sex; the
second Is that they prefer the company
of men to that of one another. Girls como
to the restaurant each noontide by he
hundred-stenographe telegraphers,
bookkeepers, cashiers, clerks and law
yers, girls dark and fair, plump and will
lowy, with their natty, new-fashioned
short skirts and tasteful INFUSED up
business hats. They are refined and in
telligent-looking young business women.
They do not lunch on chocolate creams
and fiim-fam. Not they! -Oldtime poets
and romancers bestow on their heroines
the appetite of a canary, and have ply
sicians prescribe goats whey and gentle
exercise for lovelorn maidens. The food
is substantial as at any mans restau-
rant-much the same, in fact. Some diff
Is
ed and there are four kinds of dessert.
Yet a third moldy libel on the feminine
sex receives a blow in this lunchroom. 1t
is that women chatter like magpies when
they are together and unrestrained by the
overwhelming presence of man. Ameri-
can women do not, at any rate. These girls
of business are surprisingly quiet. They
enter and take their places at table with
a preoccupied look, as though they have
brought their work with their in their
minds and cannot Immediately slip it of
and put it down like peddler's pack.
The girls talk of clothes, of beaux, and
Of woes. These not exclusively, but
among other matters. Women pour their
grievances and sorrows into the sympa-
thetic ears of sister women. 1t is a way
the sex has. II an unreasonable or i'll
tempered employer could hear the verdict
pronounced on him in this women's lunch
room he would never scold the girls again.
From one table floats talk on fashions. If
you listen to words not at all intended for
your ear you will find that one of these
busineSslike young women is actually bet
ting another that she can detect every
girl in that room who wears one Of the
new skirt pads the minute she sees her
walk.
The pads always wabble," she says.
Il bet you can't do it, answers the
other. THE wabbly ones are made OF
wire springs. II you make EN- Of bird |
seed ]
Now, look out. or you'll get me angry''
says another business woman, pretty |
girl. whose chums are guying her.
y don't believe we could" replies her |
friends, you are so good tempered.
It's true, never lose my temper eX-
cept at home,'' replies the pretty girl.
That's the worst possible place to lose
it" remarks woman attorney, speaking /
as one having authority. 1T always raises 4
the biggest row, makes divorce cases, and !
work without end for the lawyers"
But you can't keep your temper at
home, can you?"
The woman lawyer thinks you can if you
try. decidedly.
Ladies of the law are so interested in
their profession that they talk shop lit
tie. even at the table They are inter
ested in cases in which members OF the
bar of their own sex are acting as attor-
neys The newspaper women are perhaps
more silent than the rest. Mayhap they
are musing on whether it will pay better
to strive for higher reward in the Jour-
nalistic profession or to strive to get out
Of it altogether. Maybe it is a toss-up.