Cafeteria (1896)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

 "The first cafeteria in the South--where the industry proliferated most and
thrives today--was in 1918 at Britling's Department Store in Birmingham,
Alabama."
--John Mariani, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DINK (1999), pp. 51-52.

    I put ancestry.com to work on the "cafeteria" question.


   12 January 1896, ATLANTA CONSTITUTION (GA), pg. 18, col. 6:
FIXTURES FOR SALE at No. 6 Whitehall, the new cafeteria: any one
contemplating the starting of an eating house can do well by seeing what we have for sale.

   1 March 1896, ATLANTA CONSTITUTION (GA), pg. 9, col. 2:
   THE POPULARITY of the Cafeteria increases daily.  The best of everything
to eat at the lowest possible prices.  Open Sundays.
(...)
   DEVILED crab 10 cents.  Cafeteria, 6 Whitehall street.  Open Sundays.
(...)
   HALF DOZEN SELECT oysters stewed in mil for 15 cents at the Cafeteria, 6
Whitehall; open Sundays.

   15 March 1896, ATLANTA CONSTITUTION (GA), pg. 24, col. 3:
      _DO YOU EAT?_
   _If So, Try the Cafeteria._
   There you will find anything the most fastidious could wish.  They have
fed for the past week from three to five hundred people a day.  This speaks well
for the management, and Atlanta should feel proud for such spiritedness, as
the city has for a long time felt its need.  Don't forget, their number is 6
Whitehall street, and remember you get the best possible attention there.

   7 March 1901, WAUKESHA FREEMAN (Waukesha, Wisconsin), pg. 1, col 5:
   The teacher with whom the club is negotiating is Miss Emma G. Stiles,
manager of the cafeteria of the South Side High School in Milwaukee.  She comes
highly recommended as cook and instructor.

   9 March 1902, ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, pg. 2, col. 2:
   Then we serve on the cafeteria plan, which saves the expense and trouble
of dining room service.  What kind of a plan is that?  Every girl serves
herself.  We have a blackboard on which the bill of fare is written, and when she
decides what she wants, the girl goes to the serving counter and tells the lady
behind it what she wants, the lady gives it to her on a tray, she helps
herself to bread, butter, cream abd sugar, and silver, and at this point her dinner
is checked; she takes her dinner to any table she chooses.  When she has eaten
and finished her visit with her table companions, she brings her dishes back
and pays the cashier.