CITY OF DINERS-OUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 168, 16 July 1921, Page 25

CITY OF DINERS-OUT.

SCAKCITY OF SERVANTS. New York has adopted eating ac its most popular indoor sport. An extraordinary mushroom growth of restaurants is dotting every street with over-night cafes and tearooms, where one may lounge at will and pass the time of day. Four years ago New York had 5100 restuarante. To-day the Board of Health has 12,000 on its list for regular inspection. Prohibition is partly responsible for the new craze, for men still like to gather together and talk outside their own homes; but the new popularity of restaurant living is much more due to the. passing of the domestic pervant (says tiie New York correspondent of the "Daily Express," London). Families are fortunate who can engage women to come in once a week and do the washing for 18/ per day and od extra for t-am fare! Housewives have forgotten the time when they had servants seven days per week. A housewife who can engage a woman twice weekly is assured of high social standing. But, with the passing of the domestic servant the American housewife has developed no sense of keenness to work hrrself into the position of a slavey. The most time-consuming household duty in America is cooking. So it hae come about that American women have encouraged the development of restaurant living since the scarcity of seiv vants began. It takes time to develop new habits, but the restaurant habit has now had time to become a normal part of New York life. There is scarcely a family in New York' in comfortable circumstances that does not dine out at least one night weekly. With an average of one hundred persons as the maximum of accommodation for each of New York's 12,000 restaurants, 1,200,000 persons are served nightly if the tables are filled only once. Many New Yorkers go to the restaurant twice and thrice weekly, and a surprising number dine out every evening. The custom of nightly restaurant visiting has made a special place in New York life for the neighbourhood j rer.taurant. The neighbourhood restau- j rant is a rather small establishment \ in a middle-class residential district, j It serves either a la cart* or table d'hote ! meals, or both, at reasonable prices. It caters especially for families. It is more than a boarding house that supplies table board to outsiders, but it wants the same kind of regular clients. One finds these neighbourhood restaurants tucked away in side -streets all over New York. Taking note of their popularity, new apartment houses now being constructed have restaurants added to them. Some apartment houses, in fact, are advertising a common kitchen, where the housewife can have her dinner cooked and sent to her own apartme/it, ready for tile table. At any cost New York must have leisure for its -women.