El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-03-29
QUICK LUNCH ROOM
DEMOCRACY OF AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION.

VIE quick lunch room is a peculiar
~ distinctive american institu-
ton. 1t is the creature and the
symbol of that hustle and hurry which
has enabled the American business man
to do 10 times as much work in decade
as can be done by all his foreign com
petitors together.
1t is also the omen and augury Of the
certain dyspeptic death 10 which Amer
leans are consigned, individually and
collectively, by vegetarianS, F'letcherites,
physicians and Englishlnen- Further
more. the quick lunch room is generally,
sometimes with justice, accused of being
the great mart in which food adulter-
ators turn into gold the honest hunger
of innocent men, without regard for the
future security Of those honest and in
nocent stCmachs.
Good Food for Little Money.
Unfortunately it has become the fash
ion to decry the quick lunch room as an
unmixed evil when, on the showing of
facts Americans should be as proud of
il of any other distinctive red. white
and blue eagle feather grown entirely on
home soil. True, II is an institution
which could not exist in any other coun-
try. But that is due rather to the SUI
GRITTY of the quick lunch room
Despite the high cost of living in
America, despite the food trusts and the
cold storage combines, despite high
wages and general prosperity. the Amer
lean quick lunch room offers better
food for the money, quantity and quail
ity both considered, than can be obtain
ed anywhere else on earth. The Amer
lean restaurant may be inferior to those
of Europe, and 1t certainly is higher
priced. but the quick lunch room stands
uneXceled in It's field.
Demands In Different Cities.
In Boston the quick lunch purveyor
may succeed only by virtue of his ex-
celent beans and pie. In New York
the fame of good beef and will spread
even farther than the odor of the cab
bage so succinctly indicated by that
word and"
In Baltimore and Washington the sue
cessful lunch room must provide Mary
land biscuits fit for epicures. and good
milk wherewith to wash them down. In
Charleston the lunch room is Impossible
for the people dine at o'clock in the
afternoon for the good and sufficient
reason that queen Anne had her .prin-
cipal meal at that hour
In Atlanta. where the spirit of hustle
is at high tide, the lunch room cooks
have combined the culinary economy of
Athens and Sparta with the kitchen
prodigality of the old south. The lunch
comes quickly, but there is hot bread
on the side
Chicago took a German bakery and
expanded ii into a system Of quick lunch
rooms capable of feeding 5000 people
between 1890 and 1895. catering to all
tastes and ali nationalities Farther
west the lunch counter is high and the
customer perches himself an a very Eff
fel tower OF stool, but the prices come
down
Texas towns know the taste of real
chill con carne and the delicious odor
of genuine tamales. The Pacific coast
cities afford all the kinds of lunch
rooms that the whole country boasts. for
the Pacific coast cities are each one
the whole Of the United States in epi-
tome.
Coffee and Pie.
Responsive, therefore 10 local tradi-
lions OF taste. and differing in details
the quick lunch room is nevertheless
much the same in every part of the
country. Every one of them claim 10
serve unsurpassed coffee every one
makes pie the chief article of diet and
every one furnishes toothpicks ad lib
itum.
Ii ray be a huge room in which a
thousand people sit at handicapped
tables piled high with paper napkins.
served quickly and smartly by uniform
ed girl walters. 1t may be an artificial
ly lighted basement where each customer
gathers plate, knife and fork and then
passes in procession before the roast TO
be served. later computing his own bill
and paying ii as he passes the mountain
OF toothpicks. Or it may be a tiled hall
filled with big chairs. one arm of which
is expanded into an elbow table. from
which coffee and pie. biscuits and milk
may be taken in comfort and COMPARE
tive leisure But whatever the system
whatever the menu. whatever the serY-
ice. 10 minutes is q long time to eat
and % cents is not at all a small check
Perhaps the factory made pies are
bad for our digestion. but DR.. Wiley is
doing much to cure that Perhaps the
strong coffee is bad for our nerves, but