Lunch Counter Lingo
"Adam and Eve on a raft and a cup of Joe!"
Learning a New Food Language
National Standard for FACS Education:
8.4 Demonstrate planning menu items based on standardized recipes to meet customer needs.
8.6 Demonstrate implementation of food service management functions.
8.7 Demonstrate the concept of internal and external customer service.
Objective: To introduce students to an amusing and historical method of communication between the front and back of the house in a food service operation.
The term lunch counter was first used in the United States in 1869. This forerunner of the fast food restaurant became known as a luncheonette or diner in the 1930s. Often located in downtown department stores or other high-traffic areas in a town or city, the luncheonette was known for quick service, a limited menu and reasonable prices. Most diners or luncheonettes specialize in breakfast and lunch. The menu often consisted of what we commonly label comfort foods today–those All-American favorites like the hot dog, hamburger and milk shake. In an effort to shorten the time between the customer placing an order and the food actually being served, the wait staff and cooks developed this colorful code for calling out the order instead of writing it down. This code has become known as Lunch Counter Lingo. Though not as common today, many of these phrases have become part of our national speech patterns and are still in use. At retro restaurants like Ed Debevic’s in Chicago you may wonder exactly what you’ve ordered when your savvy server calls out your order to the cooks on the line. You’ll find, however, that it’s better to learn the Lunch Counter Lingo than to invite the scorn of these colorful waiters and waitresses by asking too many questions!
Activity Directions:
1. Welcome to Daisy’s Diner where you’ll get really good food really fast! We want you to feel right at home, so you’ve been given a Daisy’s Diner Menu and a Diner Lingo Glossary to guide you through your dining experience.
2. To give you some practice in using Diner Lingo, translate the following customer order into more familiar menu terms:
A crowd of cluck and grunt, dough well done with cow to cover, a cup of Joe–all on wheels.
What did the customer order?
3. For the purpose of this activity, your teacher will assign you to a role as either a waiter/waitress (better known as a wait person in politically correct terms), a customer or a cook.
4. From the Daisy’s Diner Menu, each student will create two customer orders–one for breakfast and one for lunch. Each order must include a main dish, at least one side dish, and a beverage. The lunch orders must also include a dessert. Menu items may not be repeated and each order must be as descriptive as possible.
5. Write your orders on separate half-sheets of paper and place in the box provided by your teacher.
6. When all orders are completed, each student will randomly select two orders from the box and translate each into Diner Lingo, writing the translation on the reverse side of the original order. Return your translated orders to the box.
7. Arrange yourselves into teams–Customers, Cooks, and Waiters/Waitresses–to play What Did I Order?
8. Beginning with the Customer team, one member of the team selects an order from the box and reads the order in Diner Lingo to the Waiter/Waitresses Team. If that team is able to correctly translate the order, they earn one point and get to draw an order. If they are unable to decipher the order, the Customer Team earns a point gets to draw another order, which they read to the Cooks Team. In turn, the Cooks Team will read an order for translation to the Customers Team.
Note: Your teacher is the owner of Daisy’s Diner and as such will determine what constitutes an acceptable translation as well as whether or not teams will be allowed to use their Diner Lingo Glossary as you play What Did I Order?
9. Play continues in this fashion until all orders have been translated. The team earning the most points, of course, wins What Did I Order?
10. Recipes for six of the dishes on the Daisy’s Diner menu are included with this activity:
Western Omelet
Chili Con Carne
Quick Beef Stew
Shortcut Tapioca
Quick Rice Pudding
Raisin Cake
Daisy's Diner Menu
Lunch Counter Lingo page 1
page 2
Daisy's Diner Recipes