Author: Anne Ewbank / Source: Atlas Obscura
New York’s 107 West 44th Street had been home to Bill Duffy’s Olde English Tavern. But with the Great Depression emptying wallets and Prohibition yet to be repealed, it was difficult for upscale establishments to stay open.
In place of the old restaurant’s “merriment,” the New York Herald Tribune reported, a new restaurant was opening at the same address. It could accommodate crowds that would have swamped Duffy’s: 9,000 customers a day. The cuisine was humble: Pea soup and whole-wheat bread featured prominently on the menu. But it was dirt cheap, an aspect reflected by the establishments’s name. The Penny Restaurant was a place for the downtrodden and not-quite penniless to have a bite to eat.The establishment was not without precedent. So-called “penny restaurants” were in operation in the late 19th century in cities across the United States. Though popular with teenagers hankering to eat on a shoestring, the restaurants were usually run as charitable projects. T.M. Finney, who managed a St. Louis penny restaurant run by the local Provident Association, laid out the enduring modus operandi of charitable restaurants. “The aim of the scheme is to afford poor people to maintain their self-respect and reduce the number of beggars,” Finney stated.
At his establishment, every item cost a penny: A meal of half a pound of bread, soup, potatoes, pork and beans, and coffee only cost hungry customers five cents.
Breadlines, where miserable hundreds waited hours for free food, were an all-too-common sight during the Depression. Penny restaurants were the dignified alternative.
Penny restaurants always appeared during times of financial trouble, but they reached their greatest prominence during the Great Depression. In 1933, unemployment was at 25 percent nationwide. A whole new cuisine of make-do was developing across the country, from starchy slugburgers to pork masquerading as higher-end chicken. At penny restaurants, food was simple and often meatless.
In New York, the best known penny restaurants were run by Bernarr (yes, Bernarr) MacFadden, an unlikely charitable pioneer. Most people knew MacFadden for his muscles. One of the founding fathers of American fitness culture, MacFadden lifted weights and was vegetarian. He’d run penny restaurants at the turn of the century.
His 1933 restaurant on West 44th Street had four stories, one for fine dining, two where customers could sit at shining white tables, and one floor for eaters to stand and eat simple food….
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