A lot of the terms were tongue-in-cheek, and occasionally even veered into racy territory – let’s take a look at a classic menu.Ĭan I get you started off with something to drink? With robust menus that often boasted more than one hundred items, as well as dozens of different ways to prepare basic items like hamburgers and eggs, the early nineteen-hundreds saw the advent of diner lingo, a colorful system used by cook and wait staff to help them remember customer orders.Īlthough there were certain regional variations to diner lingo, it stayed relatively similar across the board, and at the height of diner popularity, being an expert in the lexicon became a common prerequisite for waiters and cooks applying for jobs. So, after World War II, when the economy started to boom, diners began to spread from the Northeast all over the country. This, combined with a traditionally affordable menu, meant that when the Great Depression struck in 1929, the diner industry was not hit as hard as higher end sectors of the restaurant business. And being small and narrow meant that they were relatively cheap to buy and operate. Because they were delivered onsite with only the utilities needing to be connected, they tended to be small and narrow enough to fit onto a rail car or truck, giving them their distinctive train-car style shape. As their popularity grew, wagons gave way to pre-fabricated buildings. It was built in 1872 by Walter Scott and was so successful that, fifteen years later, ‘lunch wagons’ began to be commercially produced. The precursor to the first diner was a horse-drawn wagon used to sell food to employees of the Providence Journal in Providence, Rhode Island. A cup o’ Joe, ‘sunny side up’ or ‘over easy’ eggs, a burger ‘with the works’ or a ‘BLT’ – if you’ve ever used any of these terms, you’ve officially borrowed from the lexicon of American diner lingo. Diners have long been a quintessential element of Americana, but along with bottomless coffee and the time-honored tradition of dipping French fries in milkshakes (if you’re thinking I’m alone on that one, look it up – it’s real and delicious), diners have left us with an enduring linguistic legacy.
#Restaurant lingo skin#
Sous Chef: The executive chef's assistant and next in charge.Along with Uncle Sam, Civil War daguerreotypes, and hot apple pies on Thanksgiving, diners are one of those nostalgia-inducing cultural artifacts that somehow get under the skin of millennials and baby boomers alike.Sauté Chef: This is a line cook in charge of anything cooked in a sauté pan.Porter: A person brought in at the end of the night to help clean the kitchen.It refers to any cook working at a particular station along the kitchen line. Line Cook: The most common title in the kitchen is that of line cook.Grill Cook: This is a line cook in charge of the items on the char-grill or flattop grill, such as meats, chicken, and fish.Fry Cook: This is a line cook in charge of anything that needs to be deep-fried.An expediter is the person in charge of organizing orders by table and garnishing the dishes before the server takes them out to the dining room. Expeditor: This is a non-cooking role on the kitchen line.This is the person who creates the specials, orders the foods, and works as the general manager of the kitchen. Executive Chef: Also known as the head chef.It's always a good idea to be nice to the dishwasher, to make sure they want to come back to work the next shift. Dishwasher: The person in charge of cleaning dishes and often cleaning the kitchen at the end of each night.It's helpful to have someone dedicated to making desserts if the desserts require special presentation. Dessert Chef: The person who is in charge of desserts.Often times the executive chef will act as a caller during the dinner rush. Caller: The person who calls the incoming orders to the cooks.
0 kommentar(er)
