What is a restaurant?

What is a restaurant?

A restaurant is an eating establishment that offers choices in food, in prices, and in serving time. In early America, there were taverns, inns, coffeehouses, oyster houses, boarding houses and hotels serving meals, but no restaurants. The first American restaurant, Delmonico’s, opened in 1831 in New York City. From 1831 to the 1860s, a growing urban population supported a slowly expanding number of restaurants. Patrons were exclusively male.

	After the Civil War, there was a burst of restaurants. More Americans had money and leisure, more Americans lived in cities. Some restaurants served Thanksgiving dinner, but the 1870s Thanksgiving was still a "home" occasion. Only an unfortunate bachelor would eat Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant!
			November 30, 1872 Harper’s Weekly "Thanksgiving for the Homeless."

As the 1870s progressed, restaurants competed to provide ever more luxurious surroundings and abundant food. French cooking, originally introduced by Delmonico’s, reigned supreme. Elegant restaurants set the social standards for an upper class in search of refinement.

By 1880, women had begun to join their husbands and brothers at restaurants (although no lady would dine out without a male escort). Thanksgiving dinner at restaurants soon became acceptable, and then attractive.

1881 Thanksgiving Day menus from the Evergreen Home.
Entrees included turkey, pigeon, beef and duck.