Where did the term 86 come from in the restaurant busisness? Search By: Admin Best Answer (Voters Choice) There are Many explanations: The Delmonicos origin. This seems to be the most widely-accepted explanation, and may even have some proof to it. Ribeye steak (sometimes other items are used, depending on which story you read) was item number 86 at Delmonicos. On one, or more, occasions, they ran out of item 86, which somehow became shorthand for running out of anything. It was supposed to have derived from the street-car line that operated on First Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. The line ran from 14th Street to 86th Street (both major east-west streets). As a north-bound car came to the last stop, the motorman would call out (usually in a rich brogue), Eighty-six! End of the line! All out! that it derives from British merchant shipping, in which the standard crew was 85, so that the 86th man was left behind; that it was the deminsions of a grave. 6 ft deep 8 ft long. therefore the item is dead or 86d that 86 was the number of the American law that forbade bartenders to serve anyone who was drunk (stories disagree about which state it had been enacted in); that a fashionable New York restaurant only had 85 tables, so the eighty-sixth was the one you gave to somebody you didnt want to serve; or that a restaurant (usually said to be in New York) had an especially popular item as number 86 on the menu, so that it frequently ran out. Another explanation frequently given relates the expression to the strengths of spirits served in bars. It is said that these were normally 100 degrees proof but that when a customer was getting over-heated they served instead a weaker brew that was only 86 degrees proof Many people quote other examples of number slang used by hard-pressed servers: 99 meant the manager is prowling about and 98 similarly referred to the assistant manager (was 97 a busybody child who wanted to grow up to be a manager?); 19 is a banana split; 55 is root beer, and so on. Presumably some of these related to the numbering on a standard menu somewhere at some time, but the details have been lost. By: Food & Drink >Cooking & Recipes >Reference Question
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 22:29:24 +0000
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