The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1902-09-18
QUICK LUNCH ROOM TERMS.
CnintelliRib1e PhrnseO1ogy of the
Hash SINGERS of "Grub-on-the-
Run" Eating Places.

When the great majority of the
quick lunch room proprietors of New
York agreed recently to raise the
price Of beef an" also of ham
an" from ten to fifteen, cents, and
their momentous decision was duly,
If somewhat jocularly, recorded in
the papers, the surprising fact de-
veloped that there are actually to be
found men and women in this city
who 90 not know what beef an"
is, says a writer for the Tribune.
Beef and what?" asked a down.
town business man, as he read his
paper going home on the L.
well, you don't know beans, for q
fact" his companion laughed.
That's it, eh?" said the first.
But how should i know whether it
was beans or cabbage? l never go
to that sort of a place to eat"
And there are thousands more like
this man, who never went to that
sort Of place" to eat, or have care
fully forgotten that they ever had
to. How 1.-The other half" eats is
cafe where the linen is liberal and
snowy, give their order confidential
ly to silent waiter, and by and by
their food comes TO them, under a
cover. There is something private,
even intimate, about the whole proc
ess, however crowded the cafe. Nley
do not know the strange sensation
strange at frst-of having ones or
der "bellowed 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, authorizations that are
often metaphors in the rough, and
of which ham an" is only faint
suggestion.
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 served. You are
likely TO wait some time, but while
you wait you hear 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, sunny side
up" is a 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 waiter to come to you. Give
me some poached eggs on toast" you
say, land 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 after
thought, Il guess I'll make that
scrambled eggs on toast"
Wreck Noah," calls the waiter,
solemnly.
The strange thing may seem to be
that you get what you ordered.
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. Zone up" is not golf, but a
symbol, meaning that the waiter who
calls has another cup of coffee com
ing to him. "Off the griddle" means
butter cakes, those deadly bullets,
or, rather, small cannon Sails of
dough, which are commonly known
to the hardy eaters thereof as sink
ers," but which it is high treason to
call by that name within the lunch
room.
PUT up the flag" means macaroni,
just why, no one seems able to ex-
plain, though there is vaguely felt
to be some subtle reference to Yam
kee Doodle and the stars sand stripes.
"Brown the wheats" means simply
an order of buckwheat pancakes,
while two in three" signifies that
somebody wants two eggs boiled
three minutes. Red, white and
Dluc Is d l)ldlt VI IliAeu Ice cream.
The crown of the collection, how
ever, is to be found on the Bowery,
where there is much poetry in the
block, anyway. There, if you should
happen to have the sort of taste
that demands mince pie with pow
dered sugar on top, you will hear
shouted to the rear: Zone indiges-
ti1n in n snowstorm!"
One cannot well object that there
is more truth than beauty in such a
phrase, for it has been stated on emf
nent authority that truth is beauty.
So one cannot shun these lunch
rooms logically on aesthetic grounds.
If you demand your coffee in thin
cup with a handle, coffee in the
SHE'LL as the waiter scornfully or
ders, you will be snubbed 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
England, and you will undoubtedly
save money. Many a good man, in
deed, las eaten there, not because