The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-10-03
HOTEL DINER BRINGS
 IN HIS OWN BREAD
HIS SCHEME TO BEAT NEW CHARGE, HOWEVER, FAILS
 THROUGH AN OVERSIGHT.
ALL HOTELS ADOPTING IT
Few Restaurants disappearing, Managers Say-Charge Instituted
 Years Ago in Chicago.

New York, Oct. 3"Occasiona1 Diner Out'' is informed that the word .scou- vert, which has sprung into such wide use in New York hotels in the last two days, is capable of a variety of pronouncia-tions, judging from the results of inquiries made yesterday. An authority on a, Ia carte pronuncia- tion says that the real thing lies just between 'tkoovehr," sounding the eh as long a and ''koovair.' Other a la cartists and tablehotiets consulted yesterday, distributed themselves and "cowvert.'' If you pay for it. you have a Sam We1lers liberty of choice.
 Some 1unchers and diners out yes- terday thought "collvert'' was singu- lar, but where two sOr more sat down to meat, they found 1t was quite p1u- ral, especially if they took bread and unnecessary to take the bread and butter to pay for convert
 There is still a difference of opin- to whether they ought to charge for a tcoavert' or bread and butter No change was reported at the St. Regis, the Carlton, and the Plaza yesterday, where the <tcouvert'' idea obtains, but some other managers said that the 'couvert' was un-Am- erfcan, and they wouldn't have it.
 Its this way,'' said one, When make an extra charge to a man, and he makes a kick, it's up to me to for the money. and that I have to pay out something for it myself. If I show him that am paying out 4 cents and up for the bread and but ter serve each person. he feels the justice of my contention that the charge I make is correct. But if he tablecloth and napkin, clean knife and fork and spoon, and he makes a kick, then there is no way of per sllading him that am treating him on the 1evel.''
 The movement yesterday had spread to most of the well known hotels. against it and the Belmont mas shown no inclination to put on the bread and butter charge. In most hotels no unless the customer orders them or eats them, and this rule is strongly asserted by several prominent hotel managers to be the correct way or meeting the situation.
 Copeland Townsend, 1nanager of the Imperial, recalled yesterday that thir- -ty years ago, when he was boy in the Palmer House, in Chicago, when Potter Palmer took the hotel over, MT. Palmer found that the hotel was bread and butter, and he put stop to it. and ordered a charge to be made for it. giving away of bread and butter was wrong in principle and unsound from a. business point of view, said Mir. Townsend ''As it is, the hotel man ager in addition to furnishing clean linen and tableware, gives his GUS toner salt, pepper and all sorts of sauces free. and these items though insignificant from the individual point of view, represent a tremendous outlay for a. hotel in the course of a year.
 It is the testimony of almost every hotel manager that the average res- taurant in !. a hotel is not self-support- ing While the European hotel man ager runs his restaurant at profit, the American manager usually cons1d- CTS that if he splits even he is doing we'll The profits must come from the rent of rooms. You are told that the only hotels that make money out of their restaurants in New Yerk arc those where the volume of trade is enormous such as the Waldorf. manager whose hotel has a, capacity of 400 asserted yesterday that he could feed 800 people with the same staff he has and at comparatively small in- crease in cost except the actual out lay for additional food. He says that his restaurant has never paid for it. self but that the ten-cent bread charge will enable him to split even.
 .tsIf feed only 400 people, who each take an order c2 Nf<H<a end butter he explained. "that will make $40 a day coming to me that I missed or the idea of making the charge has made such a strong appeal to the ho- tel 1nen?''
 The story was told at a Broadway hotel of a man who came in yester- day. He was told by the waiter that