The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1920-12-22
Eating at Cafeterias.
By Arthur w. Warnock.


credit to Loze Ongleais for original
ing the cafeteria idea in California
whence the Lift-and-Lug system O.
eating houses has spread all over ou1
happy land. No city so large, no ham
let so small as to escape perfect rash
of cafeterias. San Francisco laughs
unkindly when she gives Laws Angle
hays such credit and says the Lug idea
is typical of Loose Awnglehaiz with
it's armies of retired farmers looking
for rest and change, since the cafe
terias get the Change" and the lodg-
ing houses get the crest"
Labs Angalhays is almost as proud
of her thousand or more Lift-and-
Lugs, in many of which are orchestras
putting the din in dinner and taking
the rest out of restaurant, as she is
of her climate or her census figures.
| Enter a Lift-and-Lug in any town.
You fall into line and arm yourself
with a huge tray. You also get bun
die of table tools rolled up in a napkin.
But the line doesn't move. A bar
| gain hunter is debating whether to
take stewed liver or fried ice cream
sandwich. The line gains two yards.
A man is asking for "heel" of bread
his favorite cut-no heels today, nor
soies either. Two yards more and you
are ready to kick goal. You put
your tray on little track on the coun-
ter's edge SO that you can push the
load along easily.
You will find nothing where you ex-
pected to find it, the soups are where
you hoped to see the pies, the meats
where you thought to find the drinks.
A woman once tried to pick her food
Systematically, so she passed all the
desserts, the salads and the meets and
got only her soup. Of course she
could never go back. Opportunity
knocks only once; do it now; never put
off till tomorrow the hash you should
have picked out today.
Here are breads, white, brown,
black, rye, but no Scotch or bourbon;
crackers, crackerettes, and 20 kinds of
cereals; butter in pats the size of
caramel. You are hungry and pick
out three kinds of bread and four
carameis. So you slide up to Salad
town and heave on two kinds of salad.
It's off to Soupburg where you get in
to the soup. Then to Fishville, sal
mon, pike, pickerel lobster, crab. You
grab a crab and then it's Meat View
veal, beef, pigs knuckles, pigs fin
gers, pigs feet, anything about pig.
Chickens of all ages and degrees of
responsibility, pieces de resistance
with plenty of resistance. You take
on piece of pig. At Vegetableton
you see spaghetti in two styles, squash
in three, potatoes in four, peas in five
and beans in six. On your tray go
four vegetables.
The line is going fast now, but you
don't. mind an occasional holdup-it
gives you time to shop and pick. Pie
vile is here with apple, peach, prune,
pear, pumpkin, squash, raisin Gree of
any kick,) custard, lemon, open-top,
criss-cross, covered. Here also are
stewed fruits, easily II kinds, and jel-
ly rolls, jelly flopovers, jelly turnups,
jelly turndowns. A heavy consign-
ment goes on the tray. You push
along to another station ana behold
dazzling display of cakes, cocoanut,
Washington layer, also Jefferson,
Adams, Madison, Monroe
Drinkburg is two more yards and
here are tea, coffee, near-tea, far
m-coffee, milk, half-milk, cream,
quarter-cream, any fraction you want,
proper or improper. Your tray is pill
ed up with supplies enough for small
family.
Now for the adventure. You are at
the end of the line and must pass the
Customs, an alert young woman with
sharp, suspicious eyes. You stand be-
fore her guilty., as though she had
caught you making off with the plum
der. She gives one sweeping glance,
pulls a lever and puts your check, face
downward on one slab of your meat.
Don't try to figure out she has figur-
/ ed, it can't be done. She knows and
you never can know Yours not to
reason why, yours but to pay for pie.
Thus checked out you get glass of
water and are ready to tie up. Any
port in storm is the idea.
There are two occasions in a mans
life when he loses every shred of self
respect-when he sees his household
goods on a moving van and when, with
loaded tray, in a cafeteria, he starts
out to find place to eat his food. He
never has been waiter, but now he