The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-04

From Julian Streets Lobster Palace
| Society" in May Everybodys.
| Yr is the custom of the Tenderloin to
look with pity and amusement at
L those who are not of 1t. People
| from out of town are jokes. Why, one
wonders? Why is 1t comic never to
have been in any given place before!
why Is it any droller not to know
New York than not to know Omaha or
Lhasa? Yet these typical New York
ers"-most of whom were born in
Philadelphia, or places ever more re-
mote-fnd 1t droll. They love to look
about a restaurant and declare that
certain people, whom they indicate,
must have come from kankakee or
Keokuk. They accuse strangers in
town of "rubbering." OF course the
strangers rubber" They stare at New
York as New Yorker stares at Coney
Island. For New York is. after all, the
Coney Island of the nation.
| know a man who was born in West
Eleventh street. He has a gold cigar
ct case and story. which he tells in
restaurants, about a man from out Of
town, who asked a Broadway walter
what pie la mode was.
at is pie with ice cream on it," said
the waiter.
Presently the stranger was seen to
be in great excitement. He had read
up the menu until he came to beef a Ia
mode, and was horrified to think New
York could stomach suen a combina-
ton.
There are Tenderloin wags who have
made local regulations and earned nu-
merous good dinners by spinning fun
my yarns about the people of other
| tables.
| Rector's is one of the few large res
Itaurants which has not French name.
To be sure, such names as Murray,s,
Shanley's and Burns show in electric
lights over the doors of certain eateries
and the large hotels seem to favor New
York sounding names: Aston, Knicker-
booker, Hoffman. Waldorf Astoria, Man
haitian, Belmont, Gotham. Some of the
hotels have special names for the res
taurants, however. Thus, for instance,
the Cafe d'Armenonville, upstairs in the
famous Pavilion d'Armenonville in the
Bots de Boulogne. The Cafe Madrid,
MAJ im's and LAbbave also take the
titles Of famous Partisan restaurants,
which they do not otherwise particu-
llarly resemble. The Claremont, at the
head of Riverside drive and the casino.
| in CAntral park, are the nearest equiva-
Ilent we have for the al fresco cafes
of Paris. But New York has a long
list Of French restaurants whose fame
lis entirely their own; the Cafe de
lrOpera, Martins, the Cafe Lafayette,
1.-THE Cafe des Beaux Arts. Mouquin's and
others.
Martins is probably more nearly
like typical big Paris boulevard cafe
THAN any other New York restaurant,
lwhile Mouquin's Is more like good
Latin Quarter eating place. When Del :
monico's moved up to Forty-fourth
street. Martins in turn moved from its
modest home in University Place to the
old Delmonico building in Madison
Square, while the old Martins. in other
Hands, became the still interesting Cafe
Lafayette.
The Cafe des Beaux Arts Is a differ
ent sort of place. 1t occupies the two
Hover floors of q large studio building
midway between Broadway and Fifth
favenue, in a neighborhood of clubs
frather than OF cafes. Whether the
studios above it affect the flavor OF the
place 1 do not know, but certain 1t is
that the Cafe des Beaux Arts has an
individual air which, for lack of a better
term, 1 shall have to call Bob emian
C"Smart Bohemians," circular issued
Iby the cafe, calls Its patrons.) The
word Bohemian" has come into bad
todor of late years. but know of no
good substitute. The Century liction-
larry defines Bohemian as "A person
especially an artist or literary man.