1935 Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book

156

OLD WALDORF-ASTORIA BAR BOOK. -not necessarily spent before an attack upon the lunch table-served to keep them in good standing. By such an outlay as little as three times a week, a man could eat daily from that hospitable offering a luncheon that, served in one of the hotel's restaurants, would have set him back a good two dollars-and get away with it. And many so dici. The table in the Waldorf-Astoria Bar cost the hotel more than seventy-five hundred dollars a year. It proved excel– lent advertisement, for no inconsiderable slice of the hotel's profits came from the sale of wines and liquors. Service was rendered with a distinction many establish– ments of a similar nature lacked. For example, in its early days, a small, snowy napkin went with each drink, enabling a patron to remove certain traces from his mustache or his whiskers-heavy mustaches and whiskers were abundant– without toting home odors in his hip pocket, or wherever he carried his handkerchief. And while questions were not usually asked, men who bought drinks were supposed to be able to freight them away intact, and not to spill them, or to show other effects than a certain mellowness and good fellowship-though perhaps fl:µency in argument or reminiscence might be forgiven one who was standing treat. In brief, a gentleman was supposed to be lar~ than what he drank. The theory of the proprietor of the estab– lishment was that all his patrons were gentlemen. And the theory was good, even if it didn't always work out in practiGe. The actual bar itself, a large, rectangular counter at the northeast corner of the room, as noted, had a brass rail running alL around its foot. In its center was a long re– frigerator topped by a snowy cloth and an orderly arrange– ment of drinking glasses. At one end of this cover stood