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By Wm. P. Byrne (Already is the hot soda)

Already is the hot soda apparatus, burnished till it shines in renewed splendors, sending forth, these cool evenings, its lazily curling vapors of hot steam, and humming its cozy murmuring of bubbling water, suggesting to the customer the warming beverage that has now become much more than the rival of the cool glass of soda that was the delight of the hot evenings of the by-gone summer.

The proprietor of the large establishment has no regrets for the departing season, has no fears for the coming winter. He beholds every stool and chair occupied throughout the freezing days and evenings, and inhales the grateful appetizing odors diffused from hazy spirals, arising from the hot cup so welcome to the chilled patron seeking relief and comfort from the nipping temperature of the outside atmosphere.

It is not, however, for the large dealer we pen these lines, but rather for the owner of the smaller soda apparatus, attended by a single dispenser, or perhaps only by himself and clerk. 'Tis to this moderate dealer we would point out a course for the coming winter that will bring the joy of success to the heart and the ring of profit to the cash-box.

The smaller apparatus during the past summer has fulfilled its destiny, just as the larger apparatus with its sales of thousands of glasses per day has fulfilled its destiny. Each has made its profit, and the smaller dealer as well as the larger is satisfied with the share he has received. But right here the parallel between the large and the small dealer ceases. The larger dealer has no doubts or fears or hesitation as to the course he shall follow during the approaching season of cold weather. His hot soda outfit is prepared and installed, and the coming campaign in which the cold soda is gradually relegated to second place, and the hot soda steadily to the front is inaugurated. It is a regulated shifting or see-saw of summer and winter business, yet each dovetailing into the other in so perfect a manner that it is scarcely possible to point out just where one has lost the supremacy and the other gained it.

Up to the present time the moderate dealer in soda water has taken up the hot soda problem tentatively only. It has been a half-hearted experiment! Had he taken up the cold soda water problem in the spring of the year in the same spirit, his season would have been an utter failure, for he < who enters experimentally and half-heartedly on a course but invites failure-and the invitation is seldom declined.

In this experimental fashion the hot soda stand is placed on the counter, the beverage is prepared and the business is begun; it is often served in a mug, sometimes such a one as a barber would use for his soap and brush, is all sweetened alike and to its full limit, and is colored with milk having been prepared with water, and served to the customer nothing different from what a hastily and carelessly provided cup of cocoa made at home would be. There is nothing appetizing in this! It is poor and the public will reject such service at once.

Let us look at the larger soda water establishment whose proprietor is wholly content either with a sweltering thermometer of 90 degrees or a freezing one of 10 or 20 degrees below zero.

His cup of hot chocolate is just right, the liquid is well prepared, and when served at the table or counter is topped with a tablespoonful of whipped cream. The cup and saucer are of delicately thin china. Two or three water crackers are served on a separate saucer or plate, and with the chocolate hot enough to invite a leisurely enjoyment of this really appetizing little lunch, you have made a customer that will visit you more or less often as long as the cold weather maintains the hot soda apparatus in operation. Why does not the moderate dealer in soda water follow the plan of the larger dealer? In the service of cold soda water he will not permit his larger competitor one jot of advantage in the prepared glass offered to the customer. At every step he meets competition successfully and does his share of the business to the full extent of the capacity and equipment of his establishment. He has shown himself again and again fully capable of directing and maintaining as large a business as his big competitor had he but the location and equipment. Why then does he shy and balk at the hot soda line? "The Lord only knows!" Why does he offer a beverage in hot soda palpably inferior in taste and tastefulness and daintiness to that of the other? He won't permit this big competitor to distance him one inch in the race for patronage in cold soda water, but on the other hand in hot soda he allows him to run away from him! Why? We can only answer again, "The Lord only knows!" Only this much is evident, that when the hot soda season arrives, the "moderate" dealer loses his courage---his grip! And yet if he only knew it he could make as profitable a season from his winter as from his summer soda trade.

We would estimate that the cost of a cup of hot soda is not more than one half or one-third that of a glass of cold soda; there is no ice and no charged water and these will about equal the cost of the fuel necessary to support the high temperature of the beverage and the outlay for wafers. There is no ice cream which in any estimate of the expense attached to cold soda will average double that of all other ingredients combined. When a cup of daintily delicious hot chocolate, including wafers, does not cost more than one and a half cents, the proprietor can afford to do quite a reduced business in numbers in comparison with his summer trade and yet be able to share quite as large a profit for his quiet winter work as for the bustling and rushing business of the scorching summer.

We shall state right here, distinctly and unequivocally, that from our observations and experience of twenty-seven years (when hot soda was first introduced) we unhesitatingly assert that soda water-hot and cold-is a business for twelve months and not for six. That the fountain which is closed for half the year is, for that half year, damaging the business of the owner by refusing service to customers who are thereby driven to the stores of competitors who are thus made the recipients not only of the soda trade but of all the other trades which they represent. They are gradually weaned from the old store and little by little become attached to the new, and so one by one the trade is drawn away, the income diminishes (or if not diminishing it could be greatly increased), and perhaps many a hard-working and industrious proprietor wonders why such efforts as he has put forth have not met with more generous returns.

The modern, all-alive, up-to-date dealer will not submit to be placed in the position above indicated. He will insist on a perfect store equipment, not necessarily the most costly, but an equipment from a manufacturing establishment whose sole business is the construction and study of machinery and appliances for the dispensing of hot and cold soda water. From an establishment of this kind he receives the product resulting from the study and constructive ability of the best brains that money can purchase. No matter how bright a man the moderate dealer may be, nor however so ingenious, he will not pit himself singly against the combined educated and experienced talent of the whole manufacturing soda water apparatus world, nor unwisely conclude he can save twenty-five or thirty dollars by building one himself with the aid of his neighboring plumber or tinsmith. No, he will buy as above stated, a perfect equipment, but this does not signify the most costly equipment, and he will buy it from some reputable manufacturer whose life and genius has been given to the invention and production of machines and appliances for this particular industry, viz: the dispensing of soda waterhot and cold. Only in this manner is he guaranteed the best. With his perfect equipment in place the up-to-date dealer next considers the quality of goods and the manner of presenting the same to the public. He fully realizes that the quality and preparation must be of the best, and that he must surround them with every attribute of cleanliness, daintiness and attractiveness that characterizes the best products of his competitors. We, therefore, in all sincerity say to the great majority of the dispensers of soda water that it is time this department of your business were organized into a permanent feature of your establishment. Write to or call on the manufacturer of your favorite soda apparatus, and obtain circulars and other literature, completely covering the subjec From the various styles offered a selection may be made with the assurance that any selection made precludes the possibility of error as to a perfect working machine; indeed, the only condition confronting the purchaser will be a selection of the style and costliness of the various designs submitted.

Again in this respect we would remind the reader that the more imposing and attractive the apparatus, the greater the advertisement, and no one today, least of all the modern, up-to-date merchant, will question the benefits -yea, the necessity of advertising his goods. Advertise your hot soda business by the finest display of apparatus your means can afford, support this advertisement with a quality of hot soda unsurpassed, with a cleanliness that is next to godliness, with a daintiness as delicate as the lily or the violet, and an attractiveness that becomes appetizing even to the sated. With these conditions fulfilled-and it calls for no more effort than you have expended in the creation of a successful cold soda water trade-your success is a foregone conclusion and you will have realized for the moderatesized soda water establishment, the dream of twenty-five years, i.e., a continuous soda water business, embracing the twelve months of the year, and have added to your calling a valuable and profitable department that by its drawing powers will increase every other branch of the trade, and swell the bank account to most gratifying figures.

The Hot Soda Season.