Slang in the Restaurant.

Jamestown Weekly Alert, Jamestown, 1887-04-14, p.5

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Summary

A short period color piece, reprinted from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, cataloguing restaurant kitchen slang from Kansas City and St. Louis. Oyster stew is "Jesse James"; beefsteak is "slaughter in a pan"; black coffee is "coffee in the dark"; unpeeled potatoes are "Murphy with his coat on"; sunny-side eggs are "sunny side up"; buckwheat cakes (in "gambler fashion") are "stack of reds with copper on top"; batter cakes are "stack of whites." The "Murphy" here is slang for potato — not a person.

Narrative

A waiter writing in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat catalogues the colourful slang used to call orders in a Kansas City restaurant, including 'Jesse James' for an oyster stew, 'slaughter in a pan' for a beefsteak, 'Murphy with his coat on' for unpeeled potatoes, and 'sunny side up' for two eggs fried on one side. The piece was reprinted in the Jamestown Weekly Alert in April 1887.

  • “potatoes unpeeled are 'Murphy with his coat on'”
  • “A beefsteak becomes 'slaughter in a pan'”
  • “plain, black coffee is 'coffee in the dark'”

AI-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6). Verify against the transcription before quoting.

Places

Tags

  • color
  • funny
  • namesake_only

Source type

news_item

Transcription
transcription: complete · confidence high
# Transcription — Jamestown Weekly Alert, 1887-04-14, p.5 **Source**: Jamestown Weekly Alert (Jamestown, Dakota Territory), Thursday 14 April 1887, p.5. **Status**: Complete. **Method**: Reprint from a "Waiter in [the St. Louis] Globe-Democrat." --- **Slang in the Restaurant.** Men who write books about slang might find material in some restaurants. In Kansas City there is an abundance of it. Only in one place in St. Louis — on Morgan street — can you hear downright slang in the giving of the orders, and curious it is. If you tell the waiter you want an oyster stew, he shouts out to the kitchen: "Jesse James!" A beefsteak becomes "slaughter in a pan;" plain, black coffee is "coffee in the dark;" potatoes unpeeled are "Murphy with his coat on;" two eggs fried on one side are transformed into "sunny side up;" buckwheat cakes are spoken of in gambler fashion as "stack of reds with copper on top," and batter cakes as "stack of whites." — *Waiter in Globe-Democrat.*