Free lunch

History

In 1875, The New York Times wrote of elaborate free lunches as a “custom peculiar to the Crescent City” ( New Orleans ), saying, “In every one of the drinking saloons, which is a meal of the day is served free every The time of the day is long before the war is over . As described by this reporter,

A free lunch-counter is a great leveler of classes , and when a man takes up the position of one of them he must give up all hope of appearing either dignified or consequential. In New Orleans all classes of the people can be seen partaking of these free meals and pushing and scrambling to be helped a second time. [At one saloon] six men are engaged in preparing for the crowd that stands in front of the counter. I noticed that the price for every kind of liquor was fifteen cents, punches and cobblers costing more than a glass of ale .

The repast included “huge dishes of butter,” large baskets of bread, “a monster silver boiler with a most excellent oyster soup,” “a round of beef that must have weighed at least forty pounds,” vessels filled with potatoes, stewed mutton , stewed tomatoes, and French macaroni . The proprietor said that the bosses included “at least a dozen old fellows” who would like to have a drink, eat a dinner which would have cost them $ 1 in a restaurant, and then complain that the beef is tough or the potatoes watery. ” ^[1] ($ 0.15 in 1875 is roughly equivalent to $ 2.94 today; $ 1 in 1875 to $ 19.62 today) ^[2]

Free-lunch fiend

The nearly indigent “free lunch” was a recognized social type. An 1872 New York Times story about “loafers and free-lunch men” who ” toil not, neither do they spin , yet they’re getting along,” “visiting saloons, trying to bum drinks from strangers; “should this inexplicable lunch-fiend not to be called to drink, he devours whatever he can, and, while the bartender is occupied, tries to escape unnoticed.” ^[3]

In American saloon bars from the late 19th century until Prohibition, bouncers had, in addition to their role of removing drunks who were too intoxicated to keep buying drinks, fighters, and troublemakers, the unusual role of protecting the saloon’s free buffet. To attract business, “… many saloons with a” free lunch “-usually well salted to inspire drinking, and the saloon” bouncer “to hear [those with too] hearty appetites”. ^[4]

The custom was well-developed in San Francisco . An 1886 story on the fading of the days of the 1849 California Gold Rush calls “the free lunch for the only landmark of the past.” It asks “How do all these idle people live” and asserts, “It’s the free lunch system that keeps them alive. ^[5] Rudyard Kipling , writing in 1891, noted how he

See More in the Same Series: Bad pictures of a girl in the bathroom. It was the institution of the “free lunch” I had struck. You’re getting a drink and you’re going to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, Even Though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if you are stranded in these parts. ^[6]

A 1919 novel compared a war zone to the free lunch experience by saying “the shells and shrapnels was flyin round and over our heads thicker than hungry bums [(homeless people)] around a free lunch counter .” ^[7]

Controversies

The temperance movement versus the free lunch as the consumption of alcohol. Year 1874 history of the movement writes:

In the cities, there are prominent rooms on fashionable streets that hold out the sign “Free Lunch.” Does it mean that some [philanthropist] … has gone out of fashion? Oh, no! … there are men who do not care for their institution. Out of sight is a well-filled bar, which is the center to which all these other things are made to revolve. All of the fascinations and attractions are so many things to look forward to. Thus consummate art is the work of death, and virtue, reputation, and every one is sacrificed at these worse than Moloch shrines. ^[8]

A number of writers, however, suggest that the free lunch actually performed a social relief function. Reformer William T. Stead commented that in winter in 1894 the suffering of the poor in need of food

Would Have beens very much Greater Had It not-been for the help Given by the labor unions to Their members and for an agency qui, without pretending to be of much account from a charitable point of of view, nevertheless fed more hungry people in Chicago than all the other agencies, religious, charitable, and municipal, put together. I refer to the Free Lunch of the saloons. There are six to seven thousand saloons in Chicago. In one half of these a free lunch is provided every day of the week.

He states that “in many cases is a free lunch,” citing an example of a saloon which did not insist on a drink purchase, but commented that this saloon was “better than its neighbors.” Stead quotes a newspaper’s estimate that the saloon keepers fed 60,000 people a day and that this represented a $ 18,000 contribution to the relief of the destitute in Chicago. ^[9]

In 1896, the New York State legislature passed the Raines law which was intended to regulate liquor traffic. Among its many provisions, one forbade the sale of liquor unless accompanied by food; another outlawed the free lunch. In 1897, however, it was amended to allow free lunches again. ^[10]

See also

References