I just ran across the concept of a “Zinc bar” in Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”. The context is post-WWI Paris. Anyone know what Zinc has to do with bars?
“Some Zinc with your wine, monsieur?”
“No thanks. I only take Copper this early in the day”
Well, it’s a club in New York… Perhaps it has a zinc countertop? I’ll have to look. 
Yep! Take a look. These must’ve been popular at one time, looks just like the counter at a local '60s diner, only theirs looks more like aluminum…
Ok. I’ve got to get used to putting things in one post.
Just tried searching around for zinc bar paris, and got a lot of hits. Many references to traditional marble and zinc bars.
Dunno who started it, but they have a nice flashy chrome look…
Hmmm, I’m familiar with the term being used in “The English Patient” and had assumed it had something to do with the latest health food craze of the day, much like we had frozen yoghurt in the 90’s and smoothies today. My coworkers and I also bandied about the idea that perhaps it was a drinking establishment in which the bar itself is made of Zinc, rather than wood, but your example pretty much squashes that idea.
Hmmmm. Cross this thread with the other about the “oxygen bars”, and we could come up with “zinc oxide” bars where you sit around with white stuff on your noses (no, not UP your noses, that’s a different kind of place).
“Le Zinc,” in Paris, is a metaphor for bar.
You lay the payment for your drinks on the Zinc.
Drunks are the “Brotherhood of the Zinc.”
I’m confused…is this how the phrase was used in the story? If so it would imply not that the bar itself was made of Zinc, but that the Zinc was in the drink itself.
I don’t think Ike’s explanation is quite right in this context either (although I don’t doubt it’s true) because I’ve always heard it said “Zinc Bar.” Not instead of “bar” as in “Let’s go to the zinc.” I think the way it was used in the English Patient was “I met her in a Zinc bar in Zaire” or something.
(scratches head confusedly)
I believe the commentary at the end was his attempt at a joke. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of the book handy, so I can’t check.
Yes, that was a poor attempt at a joke. Please disregard.
“Zinc” is the term that was used for those galvinized metal buckets and wash tubs that used to be in every home. Ever heard of a zinc bucket? It’s all plastic now but that cheap shiny metal that doesn’t corrode when wet used to be very popular. My WAG? A lot of “dives” and cheap low class taverns used to have bar tops made of, or actually covered with a thin layer of, “zinc” or this same cheap shiny metal. Easy to clean and wipe dry and doesn’t stain. I think it must have been a sign of a rough bar. A classy watering hole would have their bar made of mahogany or some other beautifully finished wood.
The French call them “les zinc” but zinc would be too brittle for the application. They are actually of pewter which is usually 60% to 85% tin in old French bars with the rest being varying percentages of zinc, copper, antimony, and good old lead. Lead isn’t allowed anymore in the new ones which are becoming popular again.
The old bartops were much cheaper and easier to maintain than wood and were always a hallmark of a cheap joint. Zinc also has some anti-microbial properties.
Mm. Anti microbial are good with zombies.
This is a pretty old thread.
In about three months this thread will be old enough to order a beer in Germany and several other countries. Sadly it will have to wait two more years in France.
My grandmother called the kitchen sink a “zinc”. This was the 1970s in Appalachia. She also called the big metal washtub they used for different things, but I specifically remember it being used when they would butcher a hog.
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Though 16 years too late, I knew this as a fan of Guillaume Apollinaire
[QUOTE=Zone]
…
Tu es debout devant le zinc d’un bar crapuleux
Tu prends un café à deux sous parmi les malheureux
Tu es la nuit dans un grand restaurant
On chante on danse on boit du champagne
Ces femmes ne sont pas méchantes elles ont des soucis cependant
Toutes même la plus laide a fait souffrir son amant
…
[/QUOTE]
Best I could manage for a translation:
The poem is Zone by Guillaume Apollinaire.
There’s a translation by Donald Revell here.
He renders the relevant lines thus:
*You’re standing at the metal counter of some dive
Drinking wretched coffee where the wretched live
You are in a cavernous restaurant at night
These women are not evil they are used-up regretful
Each has tormented someone even the ugliest*
Sounds like Springsteen lyrics.
The idea of a Zinc bar is trendy nowadays.
There are several fancy ones north of the Boulevard Clichy; they are expensive.
There are also some unreconstructed Zincs south of there. My favourite is
Au Petit Zinc on the corner of Rue de Moscou and Rue de Turin.
Even they are trading on the ‘zinc’ word.
They are no longer the haunts of criminals and determined alcoholicism,
though they may very well have been in the past.