Cafeteria

“ Sometimes she lunched at a newspaper-covered desk, with Bessie and the office-boy, on cold ham and beans and small, bright-colored cakes which the boy brought in from a bakery. Sometimes she had boiled eggs and cocoa at a Childs restaurant with stenographers who ate baked apples, rich Napoleons, and, always, coffee. Sometimes at a cafeteria, carrying a tray, she helped herself to crackers and milk and sandwiches. ”

“ Those who are cafeteria wise can choose a good meal for 28 cents or 33 cents at the most. They don’t take food just because it looks delicious. They “yield not to temptation.” They have a plan and stick to it. Wise and strong-minded, they shuffle their way bravely to the end. It is said that in time they acquire a cafeteria shuffle which one can detect even on the street. ”

“ Commercial cafeterias may find it necessary to add other choices to these menus. Very small [Pg 14] cafeterias may offer fewer choices. The majority of establishments, however, will find this variety ample, the idea being to serve the maximum variety within the week rather than within the day or meal.
A star has been used to indicate those dishes in which left-overs may be used to particular advantage.
CAFETERIA MENUS
** Indicates dishes in which left-overs may be used to advantage. ”

“ If you're near a college campus, see if the food service people at the student cafeteria would be willing to make the vegetables or other side dishes. Also, check the cafeteria at a local factory or processing plant. Sometimes these people will moonlight and make large batches of your favorite recipe for you. ”

“ Another place where you have a chance to see your friends is the employees' lunchroom—and it certainly is a popular place. Despite the clatter and rush, the Macy folks have a good time in their cafeteria; the crowds that eat there every day prove the wholesomeness of its food. It is good home cooking and, as far as its cheapness is concerned—well, I've eaten veritable dinners there at the noon hour, day after day, and never had my check total more than twenty-five cents ”

“ Motor cars were now streaming through the gate, disgorging other actors—trim young men and beautiful young women who must hurry to the dressing rooms while he could sit at ease in a first-class cafeteria and eat heavily of sustaining foods. ”

“ One mother uses a plan for having everybody help at breakfast time, modeled after the tray system of a cafeteria. The breakfast is cooked ready to serve, and on the kitchen table is a small tray for each one of the family of four. ”

“ The tea-room menu is characterized by daintiness and excellence in food, garnish and service. Large tea rooms serve a variety such as is found in large [Pg 37] hotels, with practically no changes in their menus from day to day. They are open to the same criticism as are the cafeterias that serve everything in the market at every meal, and so make their menu monotonous. Smaller tea rooms offer limited choices,--soups, relishes, hot dishes, vegetables, salads, breads and beverages. To add choices to a menu beyond the number which will satisfy the patrons is not economy. ”

“ When you’ve done your morning’s work you go to your favorite café—not with the one object in life—to cram a Châteaubriand down your dry and resisting throat because he who labors must live,—but to see your friends, to read your daily journals, to write your letters, and do it incidentally in the open air while some diplomat of a waiter serves you with food that assuages the palate, 64 without insulting your mood. That’s what I like about the little restaurant in the court there. It’s out-of-doors, and you may stay there without feeling your table is in requisition for the next man. ”

“ Our café fed more persons in a day than the other dining rooms combined. Outside we could seat five hundred at a time, sixty-five of those at marble counters, the rest at small tables. But our kitchen quarters could have been put in one corner of the spacious, airy upstairs main kitchen.
Through the bustle of scurrying and ordering waiters I was led to a small shelved-off compartment. Here I was to earn my fifty dollars a month from 1.30 P.M. to 9 P.M. daily except Sunday, with one-half hour off for supper. I was entitled to eat my breakfast and lunch at the hotel as well. ”

“ There was no such thing as a restaurant; each one by turn must do his own cooking in the inn kitchen, open to all. We, of course, were expected to carry our own provisions and do our own culinary work like any other respectable travelers. This we had frequently done before where restaurants were not to be found. Many a time we would enter an inn with our arms filled with provisions, purchased at the neighboring bazaars, take possession of the oven and cooking utensils, and proceed to get up an American meal, while all the time a hundred eyes or more would be staring at us in blank amazement. ”

“ By the time we reach the dining-room, with its expanse of polished floors and high column-supported ceiling, seventy or eighty boys are seated at long tables, which present an inviting appearance with their white enamelled cloths, platters piled high with bread, and rows of capacious bowls steaming with fragrant tea. ”

“ The only refreshments necessary are thin bread and butter, and some dainty sandwiches, small cakes and tea with sugar, cream and thin slices of lemon. These things are arranged upon a prettily set table in one corner of the room, and are presided over by the chaperon, who also, when the opportunity affords, moves about among the guests, chatting to each and all as if she were in her own drawing-room. If the man has several rooms, one may be opened as a dressing-room in which the women may lay their wraps. The men guests may leave their coats and hats on the hall table or rack. ”

“ In a boarding house it may economize labor to set the table over night, but it is pleasanter and more homelike to have it set fresh and clean with the morning light; beside, to have the dining table clear of an evening is often a great family convenience.
The dining room affords grand opportunity for the domestic artist. The bread board, bread and carving knife handles, salad fork and spoon, all offer employment to the carver’s tool, to say nothing of cabinet, sideboard and over-mantel. ”

“ A tented restaurant springs from the ground; only black coffee and biscuit, but the coffee is hot—what a relief from cold grub and warm water! Business is rushing, and long arms are reaching over the crowd in front. ”

“ For the student, newly arrived from the provinces, to whose modest purse the theatres and other places of amusement are practically closed, the café is a supreme resource. His mind is moulded, his ideas and opinions formed, more by what he hears and sees there than by any other influence. A restaurant is of little importance. One may eat anywhere. But the choice of his café will often give the bent to a young man’s career, and indicate his exact shade of politics and his opinions on literature, music, or art. ”

“ The kitchen was not the least attractive of these destinations,—with the ample fire in its spacious chimney-place, the shine of the pots and pans on its wall, the blackened beams across its low ceiling, its table devoted to culinary business, its greater table devoted to gastronomic business—for all guests of low station, including the servants of those of higher station, ate in the kitchen,—and the oaken settles and joint-stools so tempting to the tired, hungry, and thirsty traveller who might appear in the doorway. ”

“ The noble dining-hall, with its delicately tinted walls, its pillars and gilded roof, with neatly dressed waiters, and the master of ceremonies patrolling the room seeing to the comfort of the guests, the arrangements of their places, and that each servant did his duty, gave a zest to one’s appetite which the tempting viands increased a hundred fold, and the soups, fish, relèves, entrées, game, relishes, vegetables, pastry, and dessert of the menu differed from the bill of fare of the previous day as does light from darkness, sweet from bitter. ”

“ As a final word of praise for the Café Royal, let me record that just as many of its waiters grow grey-headed in its service, so the steps of any man who is a lover of good cheer and who has been an habitué of the restaurant seem unconsciously to lead him to its doors. ”

“ To the kitchen and the pantry the storeroom is always sending tribute, and they send it to the glass-doored dining-room which, with its long tables, its dazzling white cloths, and its glittering array of silver and glass, looks at night like an enchanted realm. Seats at table are assigned by the steward or the purser, who gives out the seats to those who ask for them first. ”

“ The coup d'œil of the dinner-table very much resembles that of a fashionable hotel. All the appurtenances of the repast are in handsome style. The eatables are many of them such as, even on shore, would be considered delicacies, and they are never deficient in abundance and variety. Whatever may be the state of the weather, or the motion of the ship, the steward and the cook are unfailing in their duty; constantly fulfilling their arduous functions with the same care and regularity. The breakfast-table is always covered with a variety of relishes, and warm cakes. ”

“ On the ground floor is the kitchen. On the first floor at the head of the first staircase is the public dining room where a good cheap meal can be obtained, and on the second and third floors are the private and more select chambers. In each room is a bill of fare.
An ordinary first class restaurant dinner comprises from ten to thirty dishes, and for any special occasion a hundred or more are often served. ”

“ Going down stairs at about eleven o'clock, I find a table set in the front hall, at the foot of the great staircase, and there, in full view of all who come or go, the landlord and his entire establishment, except the slaves and coolies, are at breakfast. This is done every day. At the café round the corner, the family with their white, hired servants, breakfast and dine in the hall, through which all the customers of the place must go to the baths, the billiard rooms, and the bowling-alleys. ”

“ The use of a café does not imply any great expenditure, a consummation costing but little. With it is acquired the right to use the establishment for an indefinite number of hours, the client being warmed, lighted, and served. From five to seven, and again after dinner, the habitués stroll in, grouping themselves about the small tables, each new-comer joining a congenial circle, ordering his drink, and settling himself for a long sitting. ”

“ At dinner time the room is not itself, for half of it sees its marble tables covered with cloths, which means that eating proceeds, and eating does not, so well as123 drinking, favour turbulent debate. It is just before dinner, and especially after dinner, that the Café Royal enters upon its true function: to provide a pleasant, cheap place, fairly noisy, fairly smoky, and fairly comfortable, where the young arts may meet and joust. ”

“ A sumptuous feast is represented: the handsome dining-room is filled with voracious guests; footmen are waiting on the diners, or attending to side tables; butlers are drawing corks, course is following course, the cook and his assistant train are hurrying in with fresh dishes. Among the waiters, undetected, is our friend the grisly skeleton, who is busying himself with a dish he is conveying to the table. ”

“ Near the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafés constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music and dancing always abound, of the most unrefined description. ”

“ The first sight that greets one's eyes on entering the hall is a view of the kitchen, generally with a cook in white clothing busy about his work as the centre of the picture, and those who lunch and dine are, as of yore, asked to walk through the white-tiled, beautifully clean domain of the chef. A grill-room now forms part of the establishment, and the character of the meals is changed in that table d'hôte dinners at various prices are the trump cards of the establishment. ”

“ See that the tray of after-dinner coffee-cups is arranged in the pantry with a spoon on each saucer, and with the sugar tongs on the bowl of sugar. Then go and rest and come down later when the waitress reports to you that she has finished setting the dining-table. You will probably find that it doesn’t look to your satisfaction, but don’t put the servants out of temper with criticisms. Take it for granted that they have done their best, speak well of what is right, and straighten out what is wrong with explanations, giving the finishing touches yourself. ”

“ Serving luncheon at one was an innovation, but an excellent one. When the dishes were cleared away the anxiety was over, and the hostess moved about among her guests without a thought of a meal to be served at the end of the games. We set ten small tables, three in the dining-room, four in the sitting-room, two in the parlor and one in the hall. The tables were snowily linened, there were doilies in blue and white, and the centrepiece on each table was a glass dish filled with small bunches of splendid blue and white grapes. ”