1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

OldWaldorf Bar Days sale of wines and liquors. And the Waldorf Bar had its imitators all over the land. Its free lunch t ably came to be a standard that many another establishment en– deavored to equal. Now the American School of Drinking has gone. It was real. It was distinctive. It was influential; indeed, dominating. And to-day, nowhere can we look upon its like. When we try to find it abroad, we discover only its influence, weakened by time, transplantatior{ and imi– tation. At home we look about us. What has taken its place? The drug store soda counter? Stop, look, and listen. At first glance you might think this popular institution an inheritance from a glorious, if bibulous, past. But scrutinize it. Boys and girls, and men and women, sipping soda fizzes and coca cola, or sopping up sundaes! "But," you say, "look, they are eating! Does not that remind one of the free lunch counter?" Decidedly, no! Nothing is free except a glass of ice water. And what you pay for in the way of food over that counter is far away from and behind what you could get free, without even asking for it, in the old Waldorf Bar. In that haven of the hungry and the thirsty, what you got without cost was always good and digestible. Could the same be said of the attack the drug store lunch counter is maki.og upon the great American stomach? No. The American School of Drinking has gone !

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