Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 219, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1912 — “Beef And” Is the Real Test [ARTICLE]

“Beef And” Is the Real Test

Bowery Character Explains to Sympathetic Judge How He Was Imposed > Upon In Fifth Avenue. New York. —The answer to the question, "When Is a restaurant not a restaurant?” according to no less an authority than John Owens of Chatham - Square and the Bowery, Is. “When It does not serve beef and.” “Beef and,” in the language of Park Row and the lower East Side, Invariably means a plate of corned- beef and beans, the staple price of which tn the fashionable refectories of that part of the city is 15 cents, although in less pretentious establishments It is served fdr a dime. Mr. Owens is considered a man of parts in his own vicinage, where muscle rather than wealth gauges a man's standing. Yielding to’ the desire for a change of scene which comes to most persons at this vacation season, Mr. Owens a few evening since wandered northward as far as Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street ■■' „ Just as be was passing the most gilded of the fashionable uptown ho teis the pangs of hunger assailed him. and entering the restaurant which was crowded with diners in evening dress, he ordered his favorite dish. The waiter’s education evidently had been neglected, for he never heard of “beef and” and referred the worthy Mr. Owens to the menu, an appurtenance of dining with which that gentleman was wholly unfamiliar. To John, however, it was inconceivable that any place called a restaurant should fail to provide the most staple of all dishes, and he proceeded to demand his rights, em-

phaslzing his remarks by piling several waiters, table* and chairs in ah impressive heap in tbe center at the room. When he told the magistrate in th* jiolice court?the following morning of the error that had led to his appearance in the dock the judge was sympathetic and explained that while a restaurant was a restaurnt the world over it w* only on the East Side that it was necessarily a beanery.