(1830-45) Token HT-B240, New York, Clinton Lunch NY

Coin Details

Auction Record

$776 06-29-2012 Stack's Bowers

Description

This copper token advertises the Clinton Lunch, a dining establishment in New York City that served quick, inexpensive meals to the commercial workers of lower Manhattan. The Clinton Lunch was one of many eating houses that catered to the clerks, laborers, and merchants who needed affordable midday meals during the working day. Named for DeWitt Clinton, the governor who championed the Erie Canal, the establishment traded on a name associated with New York enterprise and progress. Eating houses and lunch rooms occupied an important niche in antebellum New York's food service economy. Before the rise of restaurants in the modern sense, working New Yorkers relied on eating houses, oyster cellars, and lunch counters for meals consumed away from home. These establishments typically offered simple fare — cold meats, bread, pie, and coffee — at prices accessible to workers earning modest wages. Restaurant and food service tokens are a distinctive subset of the Hard Times merchant series, reflecting the growing commercialization of food service in America's rapidly urbanizing cities. The Clinton Lunch token documents a business model that would evolve through the nineteenth century into the diner and cafeteria concepts of the twentieth century.

Rarity Notes

Scarce. Restaurant/eating house token. Rarity R-3.

Cross References

Rulau HT-B240