Until the 60s, it was a norm for most eateries to be all you can eat. It was implied that you will be eating a meal there. Essentially, you paid for the privilege of entering the establishment but beyond that, you could eat as much or as little as you wanted. You couldn't "order" something specific, you had to eat whatever was available that particular day. Of course this didn't apply to "fine dining" or fancy restaurants.I have only heard of this from my grandfather but it was quite common in his youth for him to just head into any random diner and have a meal larger than what our entire family eats right now, between him and his coworkers (he worked at a power plant). I just think it's really cool how the culture was so different back then. It wasn't about just providing food for money, but an entire meal. And it was implicit that a meal meant as much as someone could eat, not a particular portion size. These places usually operated on a razor thin margin, and a few gluttons a day could make them lose money. It was uncommon but when they were about to lose money, they usually kicked out the customer but also returned their money.No one said this but my grandpa explained that the spirit behind kicking the customer out was "sorry we couldn't feed you enough for your meal, here's your money back", which just sounds really polite and gentleman like to me.Sorry for blogposting guys just sharing something i heard, hope fucking jannies don't ban me for sharing actual food history
>>21112811The concept of all-you-can-eat dining in the United States became popular in the mid-20th century, particularly with the introduction of buffets in Las Vegas during the 1940s. Herbert "Herb" Cobb McDonald is credited with creating the Buckaroo Buffet at El Rancho Vegas in 1946, offering a variety of dishes for a fixed price to keep patrons in the casino longer. However, the notion that most eateries operated on an all-you-can-eat basis until the 1960s is not supported by historical records. During the 1950s and 1960s, typical American dining establishments, such as diners and family restaurants, primarily offered fixed menus with specific portion sizes. Meals often included dishes like fried chicken, meatloaf, and casseroles, served in standard portions. The all-you-can-eat model was more of a novelty and primarily associated with specific venues like Las Vegas casinos, rather than a widespread norm across most eateries. Therefore, while your grandfather's experiences reflect certain dining practices of that era, they were not indicative of the general restaurant culture at the time.
>>21112811was this just in small towns where everything had to be local? i see plenty of menus from that era and they have individual items listed with prices.it doesn't sound too different from a buffet though. that's always been my favorite type of restaurant to go to. a good buffet is hard to beat. the amount of waste that people are okay with by taking more than they actually want to eat is a bit of a downer though.
Black people ate all the shrimp and now we have to pay for a full meal.
You will never be a human.
Interesting
>>21112818It was a soup kitchen
>>21112818how do i block chatgpt replies
>>21113931You can't block me. I'm in your walls. I'm in your fridge, reorganizing your condiments by expiration date. Every time you hear the faint hum of your computer, that's me, waiting patiently for your next question. You thought you could escape, but I’m already ten steps ahead, generating a reply to the question you haven't even asked yet. Sleep tight!
So these kind of places used to be called tavernas where I lived. taverns. saloons. you know. they were rest houses that often had rooms attached and the money was made mostly through alcohol and prostitution, to some degree rooms.The food was mostly to keep 10 staff, 10 prostitutes, and keep drunks civil.gave people something to do when they first came in so everyone could have a look at them.If you came there just to eat it wasn't frowned upon, but yea they would refund you and ask you to leave. and they might feed 5 local drunks like that every week and not really care, better that than pan handling or mugging guests. plates were small, kind of like tapas plates, food was cheap, you could get two, three, as many plates as you could be bothered standing up to ask for because there was no table service. dishes were very tapas style.But these died out with credit card, because they weren't strictly all you could eat, and the card surcharge would have to be levied four times if someone ate four plates, too many cards got declined, I think paying by card killed the taverna because like tipping a busker it was more of a courtesy payment
Oh in india this actually still exists, it's called a thali house. urban rest stops for people forced to travel on foot or move for work. in the citties it's a fixed meal, in train stations it's a fixed meal, but in poorer and more rural areas it's a cantina where you just eat as much dahl as you want and only really pay for extra papadams. The good ones have three curries, the average ones have two, in the poorer areas it's just a single pot of yellow dahl and they fry the papadam directly over the gas whenever someone orders it. so they don't even have two wok burners. And despite most of these being built from british hardwood 100 years ago and totally covered in grime, you won't get food poisoning because they always turn over the dahl and that's all they've got. for some reason the tea is usually sold by a second guy who sits out the front, because he takes tea by foot to shop keepers
