Lunch counter facts for kids
A lunch counter (also known as a luncheonette) is, in the US, a small restaurant, similar to a diner, where the patron sits on a stool on one side of the counter and the server or person preparing the food serves from the opposite side of the counter, where the kitchen or limited food preparation area is located. As the name suggests, they were primarily used for the lunch meal. Lunch counters were once commonly located inside retail variety stores ("five and dimes" or "five and tens" as they were called in the United States) and smaller department stores. The intent of the lunch counter in a store was to profit from serving hungry shoppers, and to attract people to the store so that they might buy merchandise.
History
Woolworth's, an early five and dime chain of stores, opened their first luncheonette in New Albany, Indiana, around 1923, and expanded rapidly from there. Lunch counters were often found in other dimestores, like Newberry's, S. H. Kress, H.L. Green, W.T. Grant, McLellan's or McCrory's. Members of the retail staff who had taken lunch counter training would staff the counter during lunch time. Typical foods served were hot and cold sandwiches (e.g., ham and cheese, grilled cheese, BLT, patty melt, egg salad), soups, pie, ice cream (including sundaes, ice cream sodas and milkshakes), soda, coffee and hot chocolate. A lunch counter was built into dime-stores in the 1950s, but into the 1960s they lost popularity to fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and c-stores such as Seven-Eleven and due to the civil rights movement.
During the civil rights movement
Integrating lunch counters in the Southern United States through the use of sit-in political protests in the 1960s was a major accomplishment of the civil rights movement. These involved African Americans and their supporters sitting at the lunch counter in areas designated for "whites only", insisting that they be served food and beverages. The Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, was the site of one of the first such sit-ins in 1960. In recognition of its significance, part of the Greensboro lunch counter has been installed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, while the former Woolworth's building is now the site of International Civil Rights Center and Museum.
Gallery
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John's Cafe in Portland, Oregon
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Randy's Restaurant counter in Seattle, Washington
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13 Coins counter in Seattle, Washington
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A lunch counter in Low Pass, Oregon
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A lunch counter in a very small restaurant
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A man eating lunch at a lunch counter
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A 1950s lunch counter
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A dirty lunch counter
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A lunch counter serving an older gentleman
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The lunch counter in Jarbidge, Nevada
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The lunch counter at the JAX Truckee Diner
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