100 years ago: Lunchtime cafeteria opens at KU

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 15, 1912:

“No longer will the industrious student who stays on the hill during lunch hour, or the hard-working professor who works during the noon hour, have to go hungry. The cafeteria at the University made its debut today. The lunch room is fitted up in the old Kansan office in the basement of Fraser hall, and the girls of the Domestic Science department under the direction of Dr. Edna Day prepare the food for those who wish to have their appetites checked until time for dinner in the evening…. The highest priced article on the menu costs but seven cents — that’s soup. Today tomato soup was served. Coffee and milk are the drinks served. Ham sandwiches were on the list today. Apples and cocoanut pie could be had by those who are fond of the pastry delicacies and last, but not least, Hershey’s milk chocolate. Not an article on the bill of fare cost more than a nickel except for the soup…. The cafeteria plan — the help yourself, pay for what you get and eat, plan, is no new one to the students, as it is one of the most popular plans for restaurants in the cities nowadays. As you go into the cafeteria at the University, on your right is a long counter containing the various dishes to be served. Behind the counter are the girls who prepared the dainty and wholesome sandwiches and made the good tasting coffee. You help yourself and take your tray to one of the nine long tables, immaculate with white oil cloth, and eat…. That the sandwiches were good and the ‘dinner worth the eating’ were evidenced by the fact that on several occasions one sandwich did not prove sufficient to curb the raging appetite which was spurred on by the delicate aroma of hot coffee. In fact about 12 o’clock this noon this aroma pervaded the upper halls of Fraser and the students who do go home to their lunches were sent thither hurrying…. There was some little trouble in getting the coffee urn to work this morning, but aside from that the opening of the K.U. cafeteria was an auspicious one. The men of the University will now have their first knowledge of the cooks who go out from the Domestic Science department.”