FOODLESS LONDON ._
Sat,The time has Co-e--when someine must speak- up abotiicatering facilities-in Central London. The ordinary person who wishes to get a hot meal after dark without spending the best part of a ten-shilling note irt.a better-Class restaurant will find himself hard put to it to find a place open. The .few tea-shop that are open (and they are hard to find) are usually so crowded that timg queues wait patiently .(how patient are the oxen!) to be marshalled like animals to their stalls. For the rest it is silence and darkness. These tea-shops close, their doors at 5 p.m., and, while one may drink beer by the gallon until late at night, a simple cup of lea is obtainable only by those who happen to be by their own firesides It might he thought that even the public-houses would serve meals af night, but this is not so. Even they, for' the most part, • close their snack-bars. As for a hot meal they would not dream of it, though their staffs remain on duty to sell alcoholic drink: By the grace of-the Publican. the passer-by, may occasionally, indulge firm stray and unsavoury sandwich left over from the lunch-time-cuiting. But the tea-shops are thegreatest sinners against the public. These; with their often impertinent young women, bang, bolt. and bar their doors as Big Ben-strikes the close of office-hours. Not that many of them are the most delectable places in which to indulge one's appetite. The cleanly- service of pre-war days is forgotten. Dirty floors, dirty attendants and unhygienic service ore all too commonplace. Worst of all, perhaps, is the help-yourself system with every variety of hand, from the well- manicute.d to the grubby fist which has not seen map and water for many a day, clutching at 'Mitts and rolls, grubbing in sugar, and sweeping -soiled sleeve-ends across tobd ,which others must eat. -
About the quality of the food, and the lack of imagination shown, the least said the better. Beans and bacon, consisting of tinned beans and clopped bacon rinds is illustrative ; fish-pie consisting of a tea-spoonful: o fish and mashed potato swimming in fish water is another illustration.! Perhaps the worthies who run: these places forget their obligations to the public and only think of those which they owe theicshareholders. If this is indeed the case, they had better think again. The time has come when they should be licensed, obliged to keep open- as many hours after dark as public-houses and have minimum standards of service, quality of food and cleanliness imposed upon them.—I am, Sir, your obedient
Previous page
