Evening star., 1902-08-01
QUICK LUNCH TERMS
USED WHERE FOOD IS SERVED
WITH LTTTLE CEREMONY.
Language Heard III the Hurry-up Beef
and Beaneries of New
g
York.
From the New York Tribune.


ITO you, the uninitiated these ~
When the gteat smajority of the quick
lunch room prdprietors Of New York
agreed last week to raise the price Of
''beef an" also Of ham an" from 10 to
Is cents. and theif momentous decision was
duly, if somewhat jocularly, recorded in
the papers. the surprising fact developed
that there are actually to be found men
and women in this city who do not know
what beef an " Is.
Beef and WHAT" asked a downtown
business man, as he read his paper going
home on the L.
well, you don't know beans, for a fact"
his companion laughed.
That's it, eh?" said the first. But how
should I know whether it was beans or
cabbage? 1 never go to that sort of
place to eat"
Many Do Not Know.
And there are thousands more like this
man, who never went to that sort of a
place to eat or have carefully forgotten
that they ever had to. How "the other
half eats is unknown to them. They en-
ter a cafe where the linen is liberal and
snowy give their order confidentially to
silent waiter, and by and by their food
comes to them, under a cover There is
something private, even intimate, about the
whole process, however crowded the cafe.
They do not know the strange sensation
strange at first-of having ones order pei
lowed through the hail. of drinking coffee
out of handleless cups SO thick they stretch
the mouth to rim them, and. greatest loss
of ALL they do not know the curious sys-
tenn Of abbreviation that prevails in such
places, abbreyiations that are often meta
phors in the rough, and of which ham
an" is only faint suggestion.
''Sind UP the Goat"
If you are new to this style of lunch
room, you enter, sit down at bare and not
too clean table and wait quietly to be serv-
ed. You are likely to walt some time, but
while you wait you hear a bare-armed
waiter roar down a passage, Sind up the
goat" That's easy. You know he wants
more butter. Then he cries. Beef an. :"
and you know that Plate O. Bostons'
isn't hard. either. But Make it two, sun
ny side up" is q staggerer. However, the
solution is simple-two eggs fried on one
side only
Finally, you get tired of waiting, and by
pounding glass with a spoon and sundry
gesticulations you get a waiter to come to
you. Give me some poached eggs on
toast" and say 'and a cup of Coffee
The waiter turns toward the kitchen and
shouts. Noah on a raft!'' Then he wheels
toward the steaming, polished coffee tanks
and cries, Draw one"
Say you call, with an afterthought 81
guess I'll make that scrambled eggs on
Wreck Noah!as eaf1lls the waiter solemolv
The strange thing may we'll seem to be
that you get what you ordered.
Grub on the Run.
There are many such phrases, some of
them common to all the "grub-on-the-run"
places, some Of them local
"A little on the cow Is milk Draw one
black" Is coffee without milk lone up"
Is not golf but a symbol, meaning that the
waiter who calls has another cup of coffee
coming to him. ''Off the griddle' means
butter cakes, those deadly bullets or,
rather. small cannon balls Of dough, which
are commonly known to the hardy eaters
thereof as 'sinkers,' but which it Is high
treason to cali by that name within the
lunch room. -'.'
Put up the flag" means macaroni, just
why, no one seems able to explain though
there Is vaguely felt to be some subtle
reference to Yankee Doodle and the stars
and stripes. Brown the wheats' means
simply an order of bUckwheat pancakes
body wants two eggs boiled three minutes
Red, white and blue" is plate Of mixed
ice cream
Mince Pie on the Bowery.
The crown of the collection, however, is
to be found on the Bowery where there is
much poetry in the block. anyway. There
II you should happen to have the sort Of
taste that demands mince pie with DOW
dered sugar top. you will hear shouted
to the rear: "One indigestion in a snow
storm"
one cannot well object that there is m ore
truth than beauty in such phrase, for 1t
mas been stated ON eminent authority that
truth Is beauty. So one cannot shun these
Iunch rooms logically on aesthetic grounds
II you demand your coffee in a thin cup
with a handle, coffee in the shell" as the
waiter scornfully orders, you will be snub-
bed as dude. But if you accept conditions
as you find them. you will get food that is
at least filling" as they say in New Eng
land, and you will undoubtedly save money
Many good man. indeed, has eaten .hsra,
not because he had to, nor because he
thought he had to, but because he liked to-
Inc penning of many criticism of the
Nlebelungenled bristlng with the vocabu-
larry of aestheticism, has been followed by
plate of beef an" and the phrases Of
culture, ping pong wise, have been tossed
PACK and forth oyer the grease polished ta-
Dies And surely 1t is better to wreck Noah
When his son is so near, to render filial
service.