The time was to come when a dining establishment, second to none of its day in social prestige and culinary excellence, was to stand on a corner of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street.  But when those who dwelt on lower Fifth Avenue were still pioneers, dining out in public places meant a long and venturesome journey to the southward.  The restaurants of that time—­they were more generally called “eating houses,”—­were almost all established in the business portions of the city.  The midday dinner was the meal on which they depended for their main support.  Then masculine New York left its shop or its counting house, hurried a block to the right, or a block to the left, and fell greedily on the succulent oyster, the slice of rare roast beef, or the sizzling English mutton chop.  Conspicuous among the refectories of this type were the Auction Hotel, on Water Street, near Wall; the dining room of Clark and Brown, on Maiden Lane, near Liberty Street, one of the first of the so-called English chop-houses; the United States Hotel, which stood, until a few years ago, at the corner of Water and Fulton Streets, and which was the chosen home of the captains of the whaling ships from New London, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Sag Harbor; Downing’s, on Broad Street, famed for its Saddle Rocks and Blue Points, and its political patrons; and the basement on Park Row, a few doors from the old Park Theatre, presided over by one Edward Windust.  This last was a rendezvous for actors, artists, musicians, newspaper-men—­in short, the Bohemian set of that day—­and its walls were covered with old play-bills, newspaper clippings, and portraits of tragedians and comedians of the past.

But already a demand had been felt for viands of another nature; hospitality of another sort.  The womankind of the day was looking for an occasional chance to break away from the monotonous if wholesome and substantial table of the home.  Those stiff Knickerbockers knew it not; but the modern dining-out New York was already in the making.  At first the movement was ascribed to the European Continental element.  In New York Delmonico and Guerin were the pioneers in the field.  The former began in a little place of pine tables and rough wooden chairs on William Street, between Fulton and Ann.  The original equipment consisted of a broad counter covered with white napkins, two-tine forks, buck-handled knives, and earthenware plates and cups.  From such humble beginnings grew the establishments that have subsequently carried the name.  Francis Guerin’s first cafe was on Broadway, between Pine and Cedar Streets, directly opposite the old City Hotel.  Another resort of the same type was the Cafe des Mille Colonnes, kept by the Italian, Palmo, on the west side of Broadway, near Duane Street.  It was apparently on a scale lavish for those days.  Long mirrors on the walls reflected, in an endless vista, the gilded columns that supported the ceiling.  The fortune accumulated by Palmo in the restaurant was lost in an attempt to introduce Italian opera into the United States.  Palmo’s Opera House, in Chamber Street, between Centre Street and Broadway, later became Burton’s Theatre.