COMS 321 Santa Monica College Gotham A History of New York Questions

In 1827 two brothers

from

Switzerland named Giovanni and Pietro Del-Monico–the one a wine importer, the other a pastry chef–opened a shop on William Street [in New York City] with a half-dozen pine tables where customers could sample fine French pastries, coffee, chocolate, wine, and liquor. Three years later, the Delmonicos (as John and Peter now called themselves) opened a “Restaurant Francais” next door that was among the first in town to let diners order from a menu of choices, at any time they pleased, and sit at their own cloth-covered tables. This was a sharp break from the fixed fare and simultaneous seatings at common hotel tables–so crowed (one guidebook warned) that your elbows were “pinned down to your sides like the wines of a trussed fowl.” New Yorkers were a bit unsure about fancy foreign customs at first, and the earliest patrons tended to be resident European agents of export houses, who felt themselves marooned among a people with barbarous eating habits. The idea soon caught on, however; more restaurants appeared, and harried businessmen abandoned the ancient practice of going home for lunch.

fromBurrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York, Oxford University Press, 1998.[The above paragraph is from pages 436-437 of this book. Page 436 ends after the first dash in the first sentence.]Answer the questions below:

1. The Delmonico brothers’ French restaurant was among the first eating establishments to let diners order from a menu with different choices, at any time they wanted, and sit at their own cloth-covered tables (437).

2.As Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace point out, restaurant culture in New York City changed forever with the arrival of Delmonico brothers’ French restaurant, which was among the first eating establishments to “let diners order from a menu of choices, at any time they pleased, and sit at their own cloth-covered table” (437).

3.In their history of New York City’s early years, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace describe the Delmonico brothers’ first eating establishment, opened in 1827, as a shop consisting of “a half-dozen pine tables where customers could sample fine French pastries, coffee, chocolate, wine and liquor” (437).