antedating "greasy spoon" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Stephen Goranson]

Bill Mullins wrote:

OED has 1925 (slang for restauarant)

_St Paul [MN] Globe_ 29 Apr 1898 p 4 col 4
"A person who was not long over from foreign parts went into a
restaurant, the sign of the "Greasy Spoon," on Seventh street, late
Wednesday night and asked for a dish of ham and eggs."

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Headline: A Cut-Rate War Has Broken out. Warring Saloons on the Levee Reduced the Price of a Drink of Whisky;
Paper: St. Louis Republic; Date: 08-24-1897; Volume: 90; Issue: 55; Page: 5; Location: St. Louis, Missouri [America's Historical N.] col. 3

"Two and a Half Cents a Drink, and You Can Pour It Yourself."

....The fight was started about noon yesterday by a saloon which is known by the euphonious title of "The Greasy Spoon." The saloon bears no sign of any description over its door, yet the "Greasy Spoon" is well known to all the deckhands on the river....

Stephen Goranson
www.duke.edu/~goranson

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