Pearce & Plenty

Pearce & Plenty
An advert for Pearce & Plenty on Oxford Street, 1891
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Restaurant information
CityLondon
CountryEngland

Pearce & Plenty was a chain of working class restaurants in London, formed in the late 19th century. Its motto was "Quality, Economy, Despatch".[1]

The company was started by John Pearce as a coffee stall on the corner of East Road and City Road, which he operated from 1866 to 1879.[2] He opened a shop in Aldersgate in 1879,[2] moving it to Farringdon Street in 1882, and the company had 46 refreshment rooms by the 1890s.[citation needed] 14 were attached to hotels. According to The Caterer it catered to poor workers with "large appetites but small means", serving an average of 40,000 meals a day.[2] The restaurants served coffee, tea and cocoa. Beef pudding was a popular dish.[3]

Most of the chain's patrons were workmen, the New Penny Magazine describing them as a "shouting, swallowing throng of newsboys, printers' "devils", bricklayers' labourers, carters and sweeps".[2] Pearce went on to create another restaurant chain, "British Tea Table", aimed at city clerks.[2]

References

  1. ^ Spencer, Colin (2011). British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History. Grub Street Publishers. ISBN 9781908117779. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e Assael, Brenda (2018). The London Restaurant, 1840-1914. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192549716. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  3. ^ Wilson, Bee (15 August 2019). "Mmmm, chicken nuggets". London Review of Books. Retrieved 25 August 2019.

Further reading

  • Gutzke, D. W. (2019). John Pearce and the rise of the Mass Food Market in London, 1870–1930 ISBN 9783030270957

51°31′37.36″N 0°5′17.18″W / 51.5270444°N 0.0881056°W / 51.5270444; -0.0881056


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