A lot of old-timey saloons would just put out a lunch buffet and as long as you bought one drink you could take what you like. Pretty good food by some accounts.
I talked to my Dad and he claimed this was still a thing in a few places as late as the early-80s, there were places with “happy hour” where they would put out a small buffet like once a week. He said in college he’d go to them and buy one beer and fill up.
The nearly indigent “free lunch fiend” was a recognized social type. An 1872 New York Times story about “loafers and free-lunch men” who “toil not, neither do they spin, yet they ‘get along’”, visiting saloons, trying to bum drinks from strangers: “Should this inexplicable lunch-fiend not happen to be called to drink, he devours whatever he can, and, while the bartender is occupied, tries to escape unnoticed.”
FreeLunchFiend sounds like a fun username.
NYT has not changed at all in 150 years.
lol at “no such thing as a free lunch” being completely untrue lies made up by neoliberal ghouls
Sharing food with others, one of the most common human group activities over the last couple of thousands of years?
No such thing as a free lunch
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You should brush up on your reading comprehension because the lunch was literally free, people did not pay for lunch or, if we consider your view, far less than what the lunch is worth. The point is that you could pay only for the cost of beer and the lunch comes free. If you bothered to read the Wikipedia article you would see that “These establishments included a “free” lunch, which varied from rudimentary to quite elaborate, with the purchase of at least one drink. These free lunches were typically worth far more than the price of a single drink.[1] The saloon-keeper relied on the expectation that most customers would buy more than one drink, and that the practice would build patronage for other times of day.”
It was a marketing strategy for bars, sell at a loss and gain a profit another way. The point remains however that they would literally give you a lunch for free, something that I did not know actually happened.
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Ergo,
Ergo hog et poster hog
I believe it’s what start ups today would call a “loss leader”. An actual loss (ergo, an actual free lunch), with the expectation that it leads to more sales and profit in the future.
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oppa gangnam style
Oh, good for you. You JUST learned what the song meant and got to awkwardly (yet incorrectly) use it in the real world! I bet you’re super proud of yourself 😊
oppa gangnam style
oppa gangnam style
Why do people post like this lmao
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Narrator: And here we see the lib poster, he neither hears or sees himself. In this hostile world of posts, he relies on the pack to survive, their shibboleths are designed to cause a herding behavior giving them safety in numbers, but today he has wondered far from the pack. Def and blind, he calls to pack, but his calls only draw the attention of the lingering critical minds slumbering within the threads…
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Narrator: The lib confronts the shadows with confidence, unaware that he is without the safety of his pack to shower his unintelligible barks with up votes and hallow platitudes. Lacking in self awareness he continues to lash out at those around him, unaware of the hole he is digging for himself. Once deep inside this hole he will blame anyone but himself.
🤣 ok, you’re not capable of discourse, just showboating for up votes. That’s cool I guess.
Keep posting, buddy
In these days posting through it is the only option.
He says, as he demonstrates a complete inability to think for himself.
Today I learned: there actually used to be a “free lunch”. They lied to us!
The temperance movement opposed the free lunch as promoting the consumption of alcohol.
ah, classic. At least they installed some drinking fountains
And everyone could use them, right?
Now look up the origin of “pie in the sky”
Damn Wobblies.
They’ll be pie in the sky when you die? That’s a lie!
That’s what they do.
If you’re in college and pay attention to staff, faculty, and alumni event schedules there still can be.
CW: seafood.
Old bay seasoning was developed to get Baltimore bar-goers thirsty after loading up on free crab, so they’d buy more beers :::
pffft, I can get free crabs at the bath house!
That was basically a similar thing in Wisconsin back in the day. But like, we kinda fished those lakes to death. Now the fish ain’t so cheap.
This is still a thing in Mexico, and to a certain extent in many Mediterranean countries in Europe. In Mexico, the more you drink, the more/better food you get. And in the Mediterranean countries you always get some snacks like olives or potato chips, plus some bread or cheese.
Its still a thing in shitty midwestern bars too but all you get is stale popcorn
Some of the “mexican” tex mex places in the us are charging for the basket of tortilla chips and salsa that have traditionally been brought to the table with the drinks.
If you order a beer at a bar in southern Spain, they give you a free tapa.
Good deal.
Still a thing in Northern Italy, called Aperitivo.
The snacks vary from place to place, from olives and breadsticks up to pizza
I know, right? I will never cease to be amazed at people being surprised by this. I’m Spanish, and the concept of “tapas” has been twisted when exported to other countries. You don’t pay for tapas, tapas are the free food you get with the drink you order. The food you order to share are raciones. Don’t get me wrong, tapas aren’t a big thing everywhere in Spain (they’re amazing in Granada for example), but I cringe at being amazed at discovering that this is an alien concept for many people…
in new orleans during football games on sundays, some bars will put out a spread of food for people. it’s great food too because it’s new orleans.
I’ve never been to a strip club, but my brother has said there exists strip clubs he’s been to in Texas? I think that have buffets.
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I have no idea wth is going on here but
The concept of a free lunch is critiqued in the phrase “no such thing as a free lunch”, popularized in part by authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and Milton Friedman.[2]
Hahahahahaahhaa
retrvn
Someone already mentioned tapas in Spain but i wanted to elaborate. I spent the most time in granada but it was also the case in other cities, but in some places you go into a bar and order a half pint (for like 2 euros, about the same as a bottle of water in the convenience stores there) and they bring you a little plate od food. For your second drink, the food is different, better and more filling. For your third, fourth and fifth, sixth, whatever drink, the food keeps getting better. You could go sit down in the afternoob and walk out a few hours later with a full stomach and a nice buzz, it was great.
