In our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast, “How American Food Got Bad,” Tyler Cowen gives some specific, surprising reasons why food got so bad. (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or read the transcript here.)
One big historical factor: Prohibition. Restaurants that relied on alcohol sales closed their doors, often replaced by diners, soda fountains, and candy shops. This new breed of restaurant served hot dogs, hamburgers, chop suey, and what we now know as classic American fast food. We traded quality for speed and convenience. Here are some photos of that transformation, when cheap food outlets popped up to meet the demands of our growing consumer society.
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The Old Days (1902)
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Two women dine out at a "girls' restaurant." Before Prohibition, restaurants that relied on alcohol sales tended to be classy establishments.
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Fine Dining (1906)
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A waiter taking an order. Most diners at the time were adults; eating out wasn't much of a family affair.
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Reno's (1912)
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An afternoon scene at Reno's Restaurant in New Orleans.
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Cheap Thrills (1939)
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After Prohibition, cheap restaurants sprung up all over America. In this family-style restaurant in Muskogee, Okla., dinner cost fifteen cents and included meat, sliced tomatoes, beans, corn on the cob, potatoes, dumplings, corn bread, jellies and preserves, and tea and coffee.
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Lunch for Everyone (1940)
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The American restaurant became a place where you could get a quick meal for cheap. These men, who work on hop-picking machines, have lunch out.
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Then
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The Grand Central Oyster Bar and Restaurant in New York City, 1915, two years after it opened. The Oyster Bar was a popular destination for passengers on the long-haul trains that went in and out of Grand Central Terminal.
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Now
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The Grand Central Oyster Bar and Restaurant in New York City, 2009. After hitting a low point in the early 1970s, the Oyster Bar has been revitalized.
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All photos from The Library of Congress, except Oyster Bar 2009 from Jazz Guy.
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and 
. You can also watch it on 
I don’t know about that. There’s an amazing brew pub down near where I live and I feel far worse after downing a couple of pints and eating an order of garlic fries there than I do after going to Subway or eating at home. However I can see that when you can’t take your kid out to eat (cause you plan to get smashed) you aren’t going to end up eating kid’s food.
That’s today. Pre-prohibition the food quality wasn’t related to the alcohol per-se, it was just that restaurants were more about fine dining and made most of their money from beverage sales. When they couldn’t sell alcohol, the restaurants had to start selling cheaper food — which apparently caught on to the extent that you can now buy both booze and cheap food at today’s establishments.
How do we control for the Depression that occurred at same time, roughly, as Prohibition? I can’t listen to podcast at work. Seems like two things happening at once.
Prohibition was 1920-1933. Great depression began in 1929. The majority of prohibition occurred during relatively good economic times.
Prohibition was in effect from 1920-1933. The majority of prohibition was pre-Depression. What was the distribution and nature of restaurants between 1919 and 1929? Both were pre-Depression, and prohibition would have had 9 years in which to change things. That’s one way to control for the Depression.