The Penny Restaurant

Harper's Weekly, December 8, 1877 reports,

"A novel enterprise in the restaurant business was recently started at 413 Grand Street in New York City, onthe basis of giving good and wholesome dishes at a price so low that nobody with a cent in his pocket need go away hungry. One cent a plate is the rule, and though two cents will buy a larger portion, the quanitity given for one is quite generous, and the quality excellent.

Admission to the restaurant is gained by a short flight of steps,which lead into a neatly papered room about fifteen feet square, well lighted and ventilated. There are three tables, each will accommodate six people. In one corner of the table is a large stove, and on one side a board or counter covered with pies and other temptations to the hungry. The one cent portions are small, yet a fair appetite could be appeased for five cents, and a ravenous one for ten. Some of the offerings were: bread and butter, soup, slice of corned beef, baked potato, cabbage, baked beans, fried mush, oatmeal, rice...all one cent. A quarter of a pie was three cents. Apple dumplings, oyster stew, mutton chops, lamb pot-pie were five cents each.

The guests were all respectable in appearance and dress. The newsboys and bootblacks,for whose special benefit the restaurant was originally intended, are chiefly accommodated in another room, as it was found almost impossible to keep them in order. Several entered while our reporter was waiting. One urchin remarked that he was 'flush,' and was going to have a regular 'buster.' He gratified his appetite at the extravagant price of seven cents. Another, who at first pronounced the place a "skin' because he couldn't get a plate of roast beef and baked beans for one cent, finally expended three cents for coffee and two plates of solid food, and left, grumbling but satisfied.

The woman in charge of the place says the business already pays. 'The margin for profit is small, but it will be enough to live on if the crowds come as they have been coming. We have to buy close and waste nothing, but by careful management there is a profit on every cent's worth we sell.'

No liquors or tobacco are sold and smoking is not allowed. So great has been the rush for cheap dinners that the proprietor contemplates a removal into larger quarters."