buffet flat

[Sam Clements]

And now that I read all of Grant's post, I'll slink away.  Sorry to have
posted the same thing in haste.

Sc
----- Original Message -----
From: "Grant Barrett" <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: buffet flat


> Great find, George! A couple of notes:
>
> "Buffet" is in the OED as "a refreshment bar" from 1792, British. It is
> in there as a "buffet-car" ("a railway carriage containing a
> refreshment bar") from 1887, American. A quick search on buffet AND
> (liquor OR booze) in the various newspaper archives turns up many hits
> for "buffet" as a drinking establishment in the US; the earliest I
> found without looking hard was 1907. These "buffets" are not always
> illicit.
>
> As for "buffet flat," a quick search makes me think that it appeared
> first in Chicago, although this might not hold in the face of more
> research. There's a gap between its first appearance in the Chicago
> Tribune and its first appearance in reference to NYC.
>
> Some of the "buffet flats" were not illicit because they existed during
> prohibition and were serving alcohol, but because they violated other
> laws relating to serving alcohol (wrong hours, on Sunday, not licensed,
> not paying taxes, etc.) or were associated with criminal enterprises.
>
> Perhaps "buffet flat" is a backformation from "buffet" to distinguish
> gin-joints in apartments and residences from those that were found in
> association with or attached to game rooms or brothels, or to
> distinguish the illicit "buffets" from the licit.
>
> Here are a few cites for "buffet flat":
>
> 1911  Chicago Daily Tribune (Jan. 24) “Veteran Gambler Says Vice Grows
> With Police Aid” p. 1: From Twenty-second street south in Michigan
> avenue, Wabash avenue, State street, and the cross streets as far south
> as Thirty-first street is a rich district of the so-called buffet
> flats. There, too, can be found hundreds of handbooks, gaming houses,
> and all night saloons of the most vicious character.
>
> 1911 Gene Morgan Chicago Daily Tribune (Feb. 19) “It Takes an
> Out-of-Town Minister Really to See Chicago Vice” p. 11: The “buffet
> flat” is thus termed because it is possible to buy all kinds of liquor
> in these places at all hours—and for all prices.
>
> 1916  Lincoln Daily News (Neb.) (Sept. 8) p. 3: The Buffet Flat and
> Wine Room, Recruiting Stations for White Slavers, Exposed.
>
> 1927 Harvey Anderson @ NYC Port Arthur News (Texas) (Jan. 9) “Buffet
> Flat Solves Many of High Society’s Drinking Problems” p. 3: The casual,
> migratory and unskilled drinkers of the world, along with a scattering
> of habitual, non-migratory and skilful [sic] drinkers, have found a new
> haven. It is the buffet flat and the New York police are authority for
> the statement that there are now about 10,000 of these sheltered
> retreats in Manhattan and Brooklyn and they are diverting streams of
> “sucker” money from the night clubs and they constitute a new and
> baffling factor in the problem of liquor law enforcement.
>
> 1933  Nevada State Journal (Reno) (Dec. 17) “Emperor Jones Is Coming”
> p. 7: Have you ever been to a buffet flat? It’s neither a lunchroom nor
> a variation of a western plain. It’s peculiar to Harlem, yet few white
> visitors to that Negro haven in New York City ever hear of it, and
> practically none get into one. In “Emperor Jones,” a picturization of
> Eugene O’Neill’s famous play…a buffet flat is shown in all its colorful
> detail. A buffet flat is simply a Harlem apartment to which people come
> to sit around, eat, drink, talk, sing and dance.
>
> Grant Barrett
>