Other cultures

[BlueTrain]

"Other cultures" may not be the right term but it was something that I was reminded of by the Tiki Culture thread. For all I know, there may be other threads about this subject and if there is, well, now there's one more.

"Tiki Culture" doesn't seem that old to me, meaning it isn't like something that disappeared, then was brought back to life by someone. These may be the same. They're all things that I'm reminded of by old movies. They may appear in new movies set in ancient times, meaning before 1960, but I'm thinking only of the old movies.

The first thing that comes to mind is a downtown, big city bar. Relatively small and narrow but sort of upscale, a place that sells more liquor than beer and probably no wine. Not a place you would bring your children but still a place where you'd be a regular. It has a bar, of course, and nice, padded booths. Were there ever such establishments? I've never been in one. But they're in the movies.

The next one is similiar and it's even downtown. It's a workingman's diner. It's essentially a main street version of the free-standing diner. No alcohol is served but still not really a nice place for kids, except maybe in Pennsylvania, where all taverns were always family-friendly. It can be somewhat ethnic but only to the extent that such a thing existed before 1960. In this case, I've even been in one. I'll bet a nickel it's not there anymore. In the movies, they're always smaller than in real life.

Diners have been frequently discussed here and with good reason. But I don't think much has been said about drive-ins, the kind with curb service. Sometimes they show up in movies, always in Southern California. I've been to California and don't remember seeing any, which is odd. But I had been to a few around where I grew up and they're not there anymore, either. So apparently such things went the way of the drive-in movie theater. The best we can do now is the drive-thru but that just isn't the same.

Not a place to eat but I'm also reminded by the same sorts of movies of a scene where the main characterr stops his car in front of a high-rise apartment building to see someone who lives on the top floor. It's a very modern apartment, too, because this is a nice part of town. The principal piece of furniture in the apartment, or at least the one I remember best, is a bar; a padded bar. They drink a lot and always have ice handy. I've never been in an apartment like that. I've seen a lot of apartment buildings like that (in a nice part of town), but there's never any place to park in front of the building, so I guess that's the problem.

Was life better then or what?

 

[LizzieMaine]

The "workingman's diner" you describe was descended from the "lunch room," or "one arm joint" and had its golden age in the 1910s and 1920s. These usually had a long counter down one wall and a row of one-arm school-type chairs lining the opposite wall. The idea was to feed people as quickly as possible and get them out as quickly as possible -- there was no concession to ambience or atmosphere, it was simply feeding reduced to the principle of mass production. There were chains of these lunchrooms all over the country -- the East Coast had "Waldorf Lunch" and "Baltimore Dairy Lunch," the midwest had "Thompson's," and there were various others in other parts of the country. The menu was similar in all of them -- sandwiches, soups, breaded veal cutlets, pork chops, and maybe a cheap, small, leathery steak at the high end of the price range, and few items on the menu were priced higher than fifty cents. They were able to keep their prices low and their service fast by the use of a central commissary system -- instead of cooking all the food fresh in each store, it was prepared in bulk in a central commissary and delivered to each store by truck several times a day, and stored in warming compartments until it was served.

These chains went into eclipse in the 1930s due to competition from drugstore luncheonettes, but they survived in reduced form into the 1950s. There were many independent lunch rooms aside from the chains, and some of them offered 24 hour service in urban neighborhoods.

 

[BlueTrain]

You made my morning. There's nothing worse on a forum than starting a new thread that gets no replies.

While not generally appearing in movies or on TV shows, your comments remind me of a couple of other food service institutions, hardly restaurants, that have also largely disappeared and in fact, may never have been common except in urban areas. One is the automat, a place to eat in which all the food is sold out of vending machines. I've never been in one but the lunch room in one place I worked came close.

Another sort of restaurant is a cafeteria. I think they still exist in a lot of places, but mainly as a place to eat, say, in a hospital (for visitors and employees), but not so much as a downtown lunchtime place. Never been in ne of those either--except in hospitals.

There is a new chain that I believe began in France called "Pret a manger" (less the pronunciation marks) that is a trendy new place to eat. The name literally translates as "ready to eat." They have wraps, soups, drinks, etc., etc. No hamburgers. I've been to one in France and another in the U.K. There are even ten locations in Washington, D.C. Definately a downtown sort of place, maybe even uptown. Not exactly a workingman's place; maybe a working girl's place. The future is here.

 

[Edward]

MacDonalds certainly see it gonig that way; they bought Pret a decade or so ago.

In the UK, we also have another similar chain called.... EAT. Now if that doesn't reduce it to the essentials..... Me, I always favour an independent, greasey spoon if I can find one - or at least a franchise if it has to be a chain.

 

[MisterCairo]

My favourite greasy spoon in Stratford, Ontario, is right downtown on the busiest corner, and is called "Features".

This is their signature breakfast dish, the Paul Bunyon. It comes on a cookie sheet, and you get FOUR eggs done your style. I'm an over easy man myself, and am not ashamed to admit that I order the Paulette Bunyon:

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Automat was the lunch room idea raised to the ultimate level allowed by the technology of the time. It worked the same way as Waldorf or Baltimore Lunch, though, in using a commissary system to actually prepare the food. The only workers at an Automat were busboys who cleaned the tables, unskilled kitchen help who put the food in the coin-op compartments and kept the coffee urn filled, and a clerk who stood at the cash register.

Automats were popular with introverts, single office workers, and tourists who thought the machinery was interesting, but a lot of people didn't like them -- they felt them to be *too* depersonalized an experience in a world that was already becoming too depersonalized for their taste.

 

[BlueTrain]

A "greasy spoon" restaurant never sounded like an appealing place to eat. I have been in at least one diner that had the charm of the ages, the "correct" menu (blue plate specials, that sort of thing), not too big or new and still displaying posters of long gone entertainers like Patsy Cline, the original valley girl. That would be the Valley of Virginia, you understand. But the place was dirty. The food was perfect but the whole building needed a good scrubbing from top to bottom. It was really small, too, and somehow seemed more authentic. It was in Front Royal, Virginia.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have a great "greasy spoon" in town here, which is the authentic deal -- nothing hip or ironic about it. It has a picture of JFK and RFK in profile together on the wall, photos of the downtown area in days long past, and a sign on the lobster tank that says DO NOT ANNOY THE LOBSTERS. All you can eat fried seafood is always on the menu, and as completely unassuming and anti-upscale as it is, it's been consistently ranked as one of the best restaurants on the coast. But because of how it presents itself -- with an utter lack of marketing hype -- it's frequented almost entirely by locals. Which suits me fine, let the tourists go get their overpriced smeary delicacies someplace else. I'll sit there and enjoy my fish and chips.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Automat was the lunch room idea raised to the ultimate level allowed by the technology of the time. It worked the same way as Waldorf or Baltimore Lunch, though, in using a commissary system to actually prepare the food. The only workers at an Automat were busboys who cleaned the tables, unskilled kitchen help who put the food in the coin-op compartments and kept the coffee urn filled, and a clerk who stood at the cash register.

Automats were popular with introverts, single office workers, and tourists who thought the machinery was interesting, but a lot of people didn't like them -- they felt them to be *too* depersonalized an experience in a world that was already becoming too depersonalized for their taste.

I lived 6 blocks from the last Automat in NYC before it closed in '91 (now it's a Gap, thank God, the city needed another one of those).

It was running on fumes those last years, but I still frequented it both for the history (heck, I'm not on Fedora Lounge by coincidence) and I enjoy(ed) being left alone and that was the place to do it as, if you had the right change, you didn't have to interact with anyone and could buy your food, sit alone at a table (it wasn't crowded in those days) and eat in peace. I use to bring a book or the newspapers - eat, read and be contentedly alone.

And if you did have to interact, it was quick and efficient for change and quirky/fun if you had to talk to someone through the dispensing machine (you could ask for something if they hadn't restocked it yet). I was just old enough, just starting to see the "bigger picture," the sweep of history (maybe that's a bit much) to understand that something was happening / an era was passing when that Automat closed.

I still walk by the site all the time and almost always get a brief pang of regret / nostalgia. And it is right down the street from where one of the last (I think) Howard Johnson restaurant was (a behemoth of a place - seated hundreds, tables and counters, and was an Art Deco marvel in the lobby of a giant pre-war building). Sometimes I feel like I'm a ghost walking through a ghost town when my mind sees all these places that aren't here anymore.

 

[BlueTrain]

According to one unimpeachable source, McDonald's does not own Pret a Manger, although it had a part ownership at one time. Your local McDonald's is probably not owned by McDonald's, either.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Most McDonaldses are owned by local franchisees -- the store that is, and the right to operated it. But McDonalds Corporation in most cases owns the land on which the store stands -- which gives them a mighty club to use to beat down franchisees who don't toe the mark. McDonalds is primarily a real-estate corporation, not a restaurant management chain. The hamburgers are secondary to the real estate.

 

[MisterCairo]

A "greasy spoon" restaurant never sounded like an appealing place to eat.

You gotta try the right one with the right grease...

 

[Fading Fast]

Most McDonaldses are owned by local franchisees -- the store that is, and the right to operated it. But McDonalds Corporation in most cases owns the land on which the store stands -- which gives them a mighty club to use to beat down franchisees who don't toe the mark. McDonalds is primarily a real-estate corporation, not a restaurant management chain. The hamburgers are secondary to the real estate.

I think it is a bit more of where you put the lens. To be sure, the franchise structure - versus company owned stores - changes the cash flow / profitability dynamic on paper, but McDonalds Corporate knows its success in real estate is driven by the hamburger (or, really, the popularity of its restaurants with the public). So while Corporate doesn't make that much directly from each hamburger dollar, its bottom line is indirectly but greatly driven by it. If the restaurants start to fail, there is no real estate business to fall back on (other than liquidating it - re Sears, Macy's and other struggling failing retailers - not a perfect analogy). Corporate devotes massive resources to trying to make those restaurants successful.

Interestingly, YUM!, the owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC is moving toward a franchise model and selling off its company owned stores. Their reason is both capital (franchise models are much less capital intensive for corporate) and focus as they believe the franchise model provides better insight into local, non-US markets where these companies see their real future growth coming from.

Re greasy spoons. I love a good one and even a mediocre one, but bad ones do exist. In the last neighborhood I lived in, there was one that had a decent reputation (not great, not terrible) and the place had all the markers - no advertising, last decorated in the 50s (and no effort exuded then), last given a good cleaning in the '60s (ditto effort), a huge outside vent blasting out a generic grease smell (that also hadn't been cleaned since the '60s) and a menu that was kind of left over from the '60s and '70s.

The problem was the service was terrible - not gruffly efficient or pleasant inefficient - just terrible / the food was terrible (hamburger undercooked, lettuce brown, roll stale, cheese forgotten) and, despite the big outside vent, you left smelling like you had just worked the grill for ten hours. I walk by it now and again and think how perfect it looks, but have no interest in ever going in again.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The internal politics of McDonalds have always been fascinating. A business writer named John Love wrote a book in the late '80s called "Behind The Arches," which really dug deep into the rise of the company and its evolution over the decades -- he noted the turning point of the company's history was the conflict between Ray Kroc, a "hamburger man" and Harry Sonnenborn, a "real estate man." Sonnenborn created the entire real-estate based structure that made the company its fortune, but he ended up forced out of the organization by Kroc, who insisted that operations was the key to the company's future. Since Kroc's death, the company has continued to struggle with this basic question, with the two factions continuing to pull one way and push another.

Love also talks about other chains that tried to emulate McDonalds, all of which ultimately failed -- largely because, in his view, they were so obsessed with Sonnenborn's real estate theories that they lost sight of Kroc's emphasis on a quality hamburger and a clean store.

 

[ChrisB]

It was running on fumes those last years, but I still frequented it both for the history (heck, I'm not on Fedora Lounge by coincidence) and I enjoy(ed) being left alone and that was the place to do it as, if you had the right change, you didn't have to interact with anyone and could buy your food, sit alone at a table (it wasn't crowded in those days) and eat in peace. I use to bring a book or the newspapers - eat, read and be contentedly alone.

Edward Hopper: Automat

 

[Fading Fast]

Edward Hopper: Automat



View attachment 68261

One of my favorite artists. I am fortunate to live in a city where his permanent collection is housed which has allowed me to see many of his incredible paintings.

 

[MisterCairo]

Regardless of the ownership structure, it has never entered my mind that by going into a McDonald's or other chain, I was frequenting a "local" business.

Indeed, I avoid such places whenever possible. Even the Canadian icon, Tim Horton's, is a "road coffee" stop of last resort.

And yes, they are overwhelmingly "locally owned" franchises...

 

[BlueTrain]

In that wonderful small town where I lived all though the years I was in public school, a lot of the stores in town were either chain stores or franchises. One advantage of a franchise is the advertising is generally taken care of on a national basis. Your local hometown McDonalds may be locally owned and operated but everybody around the country and even around the world is familiar with it and will cheerfully stop in for lunch. Other local restaurants and other businesses have to rely on little more than local patronage.

Large businesses, from a hamburger chain to a car manufacturer, will usually go through a difficult period when the founder or long time leader passes from the scene. The result may be something bigger and better (at least from tthe business's point of view) or it may lose its way. It shows the importance of good leadership in an organization, although there's more to business than that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That franchise model was very common in the Era for things like drug stores and auto parts stores -- Rexall drug stores were all locally owned, but the druggists united under the Rexall banner to pool their buying power and their advertising. Very collectivist, when you think about it. Western Auto stores were run the same way, until the rise of "big box" outfits pushed them out of the market.

 

[ChazfromCali]

I remember drive-in food establishments at least where I grew up in Sunnyvale, California even into the mid 70's.