Omaha daily bee., 1909-09-19

meal Of ginger snaps. cheese. pickles and
behring's which the house provides for its
patrons free Of charge. In the rear Of the
hotel that shows the weekly consideration
TO the Is a house that has a
groaning table by 4 every afternoon. al
though there is nothing especially distinct
i've about the TepAst. There are ham. fried
potatoes. cold meats and a salad always
and they speed many a commuter happily
on his way.
The value Of the free lunch as an sd-
junot to a hotel" said the manager Of
two Of the largest hotels in the city. may
be understood when one hotel is afraid to
let its rivals have the advantage Of offer
ms its guests this added attraction.
Ten years ago the hotels decided almost
unanimously that It was not worth while
to trouble about their free lunch. put a
few crackers and olives on the corner
Of the bar and let it go at that. Those
that made any pretense OF keeping up the
free lunch put a very few things on their
dishes.
Owner Gets n Hunch.
"One day the proprietor Of a hotel on
Broadway who had noticed a very large
mob in the barroom OF his own hotel
happened in a cafe on Broadway near
Thirtieth street. II was on a Saturday at
ternoon, the tables were entirely made
quate to accommodate the crowd and a
temporary bar was stretched across one
side Of the room. The swarm was thickest
where a waiter stood carving ham. putting
succulent bits OF Navarin aux pommes on
a plate and handing over bits Of salad to
the patrons who had drunk their afternoon
cocktail. The effect of this was not lost
on the hotel manager. who thought OF his
own rather sparsely filled cafe. and he
acted on the inspiration as soon as he got
home.
He had a table covered with an at
%tractive lunch before 4 o'clock on Monday
afternoon. and by the following Satur-
day he observed with pleasure that he
had a somewhat larger gathering than he
had seen there in several Saturdays. He
stuck to the free lunch. kept the quality
good and had the satisfaction of getting
more business than any OF his rivals in the
neighborhoOd. SO the rivals did the same
as he, and by the end of the month they
were supplying lunch for their customers.
so it spread from one hotel to another
and there is not a single establishment
now that would give 1t up. on the other
hand. IL is the effort Of every hotel to
make its lunch a little bit better than the
other hotels offer. The managers have got
away from the idea that it is merely
enough TO give their customer lunch. II
should be the best lunch it Is possible to
obtain.
Merely Business
THE wisdom from a business point Of
view of the free lunch cannot be uues-
toned or the proprietors OF the hotels
would never have reverted to it. No hotel
is now strong enough to ignore this feature
for the comfort of it's patrons. There are
few men who come in for drink hat do
not enjoy the mouthful that the free lunch
provides. 1t often happens that guests are
hungry and will drop in at the place where
they know the lunch is best.
The expense? Why, to a big hotel the
Is practically nothing. Taking into
consideration the immense food supplies
that the hotels lay in nowadays, they
have TO pay out little or nothing for what
their free lunch requires. The waiter costs
as he is only too glad to work
for the tips. At hotels which employ the
waiter at a salary and require him to
turn his tips into the house 1t Is probable
the free lunch is served at an actual
profit. You may be sure that this Ameri-
can custom would never have been re-
vired on such an improved scale If there
had not been money in IT."