Mr. S and I had lunch today in a diner with a long history – it had in each booth a copy of the original menus from 1937. Pretty entertaining reading. The priciest item on the menu was steak for $1.00. There was also Heinz turtle soup, several flavors of phosphates, and daily plate lunches for 35¢.
One item had us flummoxed: Boston-style coffee, 10¢. Regular coffee was 5¢, so there must have been something mighty special about the Boston-style version to double the cost. Anybody know what it was? Googling yielded no information.
Postcards has it right. Walk into a Boston area Dunkin’ Doughnuts, ask for a regular coffee, and you’ll be given one with milk in it. If you want it black, you’d better ask for it “black.” Whether that’s what the menu meant, I couldn’t say.
That’s it, huh? Surprising. Didn’t everyone have cream in their coffee back then? (Not a big dieting culture, everything fried in lard, etc.) Perhaps it was a Depression-era thing that cream in your coffee was special?
And here I had been thinking that it might be “Irish” coffee, with a shot of booze; Boston = high Irish population. The place did offer a variety of bottled beers at the time.
I first read the expression “Boston Coffee” in a guidebook for Brits coming to the USA. In the years I lived in Boston and drank coffee, I never heard the expression.
I think it’s one of those foods like “English Muffins” that are unknown in the place they are named after.
I agree with the Coffee with extra cream, not milk. I learned this “style” serving coffee about 40 years ago at White Castle. I was instructed that it was not only extra cream but half coffee and half cream. The customers that ordered it said it not only sweetened the coffee it cooled it down as well.
I worked in a small coffee shop in a local department store while growing up here in Chicago-istan, and when a customer ordered a Boston coffee, it meant they want lots of cream.
I agree with the Coffee with extra cream, not milk. I learned this “style” serving coffee about 40 years ago at White Castle. I was instructed that it was not only extra cream but half coffee and half cream. The customers that ordered it said it not only sweetened the coffee it cooled it down as well.