Everything’s Old That’s New Again, or Something- How People Used to Pay in Restaurants…

As more and more transactions move away from being quasi-anonymous card transactions, it’s interesting to see how 120 years ago people paid for meals in restaurants.

It seems there was an expectation that people would have accounts at restaurants, and would order in advance. If you had no account you would pay in advance (perhaps this was the model Diners Club disrupted?).

From Walter Germain, The Complete Bachelor: Manners for Men (NY: 1897) “All meals in a restaurant, unless organized on the spur of a moment, are ordered beforehand and everything, including the waiter’s tip, arranged and settled for. If you have not an account at the restaurant, pay the bill at the time you arrange the menu and reserve the table.” Quoted here

This is similar to the way the butcher, the baker, the tailor, the milkman were paid- rather than paying at point of service, people ran accounts with goods providers and settled up from time to time (or in the case of tailors, when caught). Slightly more modern payment methods had moved to a pay at point of service model, it’s interesting to see how more and more account based systems are being reintroduced, in essence recreating the old fashioned “we know you and we trust you” relationship with goods and service providers. Uber is a well known example, Opentable’s new payment experiment another. How long before we move (back to) to “everything as a service” based on subscription/account based pricing?