Yesterday, The Southern California Restaurant Historical Society held its fourth event: a "Salute to Cafeterias!" at the historic Clifton's Cafeteria (648 S. Broadway, Downtown LA). The LA Times writes about it, but I think the most fascinating thing revealed at this event was the etymology of the term cafeteria.
Charles Perry indicated that Helen Mosher opened up what was called (and now known as) "The Cafeteria" in 1905. From there, the trend took off. The terms is known today as sliding a try along and picking your food from what's in front of you - all of that came from Helen. She played off the highly romanticized Spanish & Mexican California so popular in the Victorian Era and applied it to her new concept of dining. So, the term may have a Spanish meaning of sorts, but the term Cafeteria as we know it today was "created" as an American term of high quality (she touted all female cooks), efficient food service .
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I was there too! Clifton's Brookdale is great. DId Charles Perry also say that at one time during the 20's or 30's, there were 200 cafeterias in the L.A. area?
Wow.
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