Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
The next time you eat out, take a moment to contemplate the menu.
Although dining out before the advent of huge restaurant chains with standardized fare was sometimes a surprising and disappointing experience, one type of restaurant was always reliable. Cafeterias took the guesswork out of ordering. You could see your food before you bought it, and better yet, because there was minimal service, you didn’t even have to leave a tip. Good, readymade grub and a bargain, too.
The origin of the cafeteria is hotly disputed in some quarters, but there is evidence to suggest that we have John Kruger to thank for the Americanization of the Swedish smorgasbord style of dining. His 1893 selfserve coffee shop was a hit at the World’s Columbian Exposition, and he even chose the word “cafeteria” to distinguish his fast food and easy service setup. From the Spanish word for coffee shop, the cafeteria concept caught on fast.
By 1898, refinements started to appear that would standardize cafeterias across the country, such as organizational strategies for serving lines, food layout, cash register placement and the addition of handy serving trays to carry food items [source: Cuisinenet].
Feeding a Crowd
In addition to being able to inspect your food before you ordered it, you could get your food fast well, by turnofthecentury standards. Most items were already prepared, and any last minute touches were added when the food was plated.
Large communities and institutional settings benefitted the most. Where large groups of people were around at lunchtime, cafeterias were a boon. They flourished in office buildings, government buildings, airports, shopping centers, schools and hospitals. Today, we can still see cafeterias used in some of these applications. In their heyday, they weren’t considered hohum choices, either. Many cafeterias were sparkling confections designed with Hollywood in mind, recreating exotic locales, like forests or tropical getaways that often served as meeting centers for multigenerational family gatherings or large business venues.
The Depression and Beyond
After the stock market crash in 1929, the focus on eating out shifted from glitz to good, oldfashioned value. If people could afford to eat away from home, they
Cafeteria style dining thrived until communities started to spread out following the World War II. As people began moving away from congested cities to raise their children in the suburbs, cafeterias started having problems keeping enough customers to survive. Just as bad, the newest restaurant craze, the drivein, was taking business away, too. People were eating in their cars and then using them to get out of town.
We owe a lot to the cafeteria. The promise of no waiting, consistent menu options and good value may have been unique to the time, but today, it’s an expected part of eating on the go. As a matter of
Did You Know?
In 1902, enterprising restaurateurs transformed the cafeteria into a fully automated eatery with the introduction of the automat, food delivered by machine.
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