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Hot Soda and Cold

BY WM. P. BYRNE.

As the cold weather approaches we find ourselves face to face with the problem of "What shall we do with our soda fountain?" We do not write these lines to the large dealers in great cities, but to those whose trade is of moderate dimensions; the former class of dealers know only too well-and need no advice from us-the winter program already arranged for the soda fountain. In the sweltering days of summer or the cold and biting days of winter the pleasing "sizzle" of the released soda water or the curling vapors from the steaming urn, are ever present to the eye and ear, and at closing hour each night the "checks" representing the dimes and nickels are counted up in great stacks and the proprietor's face bears as expansive a smile with the thermometer ranging 20 degrees below zero as when it stands at 90 degrees above. We repeat we do not write for these gentlemen but for the moderate dealer who, when fall approaches, contemplates the putting away of his soda fountain, something in the same spirit as he would discard his light summer clothing, only to be brought out and refurbished on the arrival of the first warm days of the following spring. There are so many reasons why the soda fountain should be continued in operation during the whole twelve months of the year! And those reasons have been presented, and expanded and hammered on so persistently that all we may now say seems mere repetition, yet repetition oft prevails from the fact that it emphasizes a truth that otherwise would be lightly passed over and never receive that consideration which constant repetition first impresses on the mind and next compels. During the summer the headquarters of the soda fountain has been a steady attraction to the young people of the neighborhood. What young gentlemen's best girl has not again and again sat at the table or the counter and partaken with delight of the "treat" which, dare she confess it, she had been secretly hoping for from the moment she had been asked to take the evening promenade? And how often the pleasant little confidences exchanged over the sociable soda glass has warmed the timid lover to the expression of his feelings? And the merry marriage bells have rung out another new and, let us hope, happy home has been founded. But this is not the point we set out to make. The "moderate" drug store has been a "lively" center all summer long. Doors wide open, the interior a blaze of light, young people (and old) moving about the store, or in and out, chairs and tables occupied, sometimes the head of the family brings the good wife and children, and often before leaving the eye catches something in the showcase that is needed or is thought to be needed at home, and a half-dollar or a dollar purchase follows, and thus the soda trade reacts on the other branches of the business and the receipts multiply and the druggist will tell you smilingly, "Yes! trade is very good." But when the cold blasts warn us of approaching winter, how changed the scene! All the liveliness, the joy and the ever-changing throngs have van-ished! The soda fountain is converted into a huge shelving for the display of goods, the marble top on which it rests is loaded down with bottles and packages and the top of the fountain is terraced with improvised shelving on which exhibits reach half way or more to the ceiling. The soda counter also is a medley of the various sundries pertaining to a drug store, and its trade has now fallen back into the old rut of the patent medicine, the Rochelle salts, the Seidlitz powder, and the occasional prescription. No happy youths and maidens enliven the scene or discuss the good things that attracted them during the warm summer days and evenings, but on the contrary it now reflects the shadow of gloom-as sad as a visit to a deserted home. And it might be so different! Would you have it so? Then, though you close your doors for the winter season, do not close your soda fountain. Away with the bottles, the boxes, the toilet and sundry articles that cumber the counter and the fountain. Install a hot soda apparatus, the handsomest you can buy and let the stools line up along the outside of the counter. The burnished silver of the fountain, the polished mirrors reflecting doubly the beauty of the surroundings, the vapor from the hot soda floating in lazy, disappearing mists on the atmosphere, the enticing hot chocolate or beef tea, or the dozen and one delightful and healthful preparations now to be found at the hot soda counter present a picture of content and cosy comfort to the shivering outside passer-by that is almost irresistible in its attractiveness. And because winter is here the young man has not forgotten his best girl, and she is still as dear to him as in the gone by summer season, and to the maid the hot chocolate is as sweet and the unspoken hope for its enjoy-ment suggests itself as promptly as in those other days when the mercury climbed far above the bulb of the thermometer. That your soda fountain is closed down is a blunder because it is a loss. Some one of your larger competitors is operating his fountain all the year round. In his store the scene is enlivening, and to it those who in the summer patronized you now wend their way. 'Tis not alone the soda trade which is lost to you, but the various odds and ends that the customer does not realize he needs until his eye rests on them and purchases then and there, and still worse, the constant visits for hot or cold soda to the competitor's place of business, gradually weans from you the customers and you behold perhaps when too late to be remedied the suicidal course you have been pursuing. Do not excuse the closing down of your soda fountain by saying you are not in a neighborhood to support it. It is comparatively inexpensive. Hot water, the syrups, a little whipped cream for a few of the syrups and a few delicate wafers. This is all, but they must be of the best and their preparation can be learned from the pages of this book. The hot soda of today might be called a very light lunch (?) and this is a field that the druggist, and to a much greater extent the confectioner, have in recent years entered with marked success, so much so that the shoppers and after-theatre parties are as regular in their attendance on the hot soda fountain as they are in summer on the various cold beverages. The enter-prising and up-to-date druggist, grasping the opportunity as it presented itself, has here filled a want that means wonders to the trade. He is adding to his ordinary clientele a class outside the mere lover of a delicious beverage; he is drawing to his store those who partake of a very light and dainty lunch, and the benefit to himself goes far beyond this, for those new patrons have eyes with which they see and in the display of the various goods some one thing or another attracts the customer, and thus sales are added to the day's business that without the inflow of people would never have been made. The tendency of the present time is toward expansion. Then why wait until you are dragged an unwilling captive into the new order of things? It is the enterprising who are ever successful, and to those who enter the field first is offered the choicest fruits of the harvest. Do not hamper yourself with the effete notion that the druggist in following the lines above suggested is unprofessional, or that to dispense hot soda and wafers is infringing on your dignity. Your dignity will receive much more consideration from the world when backed by a large and prosperous business than if it have no better support than a hand to mouth though orthodox sustenance. When you decide finally to take up hot soda and to keep your fountain open for the winter, you must hold steadily in view a few essentials without which you might better remain in the old rut of conservatism until the young man with modern ideas shoulders you out of the rut and out of your business at the same time. First, then, everything you use in the preparation of your beverages must be the best. Cleanliness, it must ever be remembered, is next to godliness, and the service-the cups, the saucers, the wafers and the paper napkins-delicate, enticing, appetizing. Oh, there are places such that the mere sight of the little china cup, light as feather down, the chocolate topped with its billowy foam of whipped cream, and wafers you could blow from your hand, create in you an appetite, a desire unfelt until the appeal found your sense of appetite through the eye. And these stores are patronized all day and all evening, the surging crowds passing in and out until closing time ends the scene. And this in a degree can be accomplished by the druggist on the side street, or in the country town and with very little trouble and very little cost. Make every accessory attractive. Let the hot soda apparatus be as handsome as your pocketbook can afford. It will return ten-fold. The public gauges the value of your goods by the value you place on them, and holds to that valuation until it discovers otherwise, so that the more handsome and costly the apparatus from which you draw your beverages and the more delicately beautiful the vessels in which you serve it, the higher the estimate of value your patrons will place on it; it behooves you, therefore, to live up to this high standard of excellence and the reward shall be gratifying and substantial.