lunch counter

noun

1. a counter, as in a store or restaurant, where light meals and snacks are served or are sold to be taken out.
2. a luncheonette.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lunch counter¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

On Thursday morning, the first person at the lunch counter ordered 30 sandwiches.

From Washington Post

There, Allen and her sister could sit and order hamburgers with their mother at a lunch counter.

From Washington Post

Along with the Queensbridge Houses, the neighborhood holds a mix of taxi dealerships, ambulance repair shops, and old-fashioned lunch counters.

From Popular-Science

But a lunch counter owner was required under the new laws to serve anyone, of any race, who walked in and sat down.

From The Daily Beast

Shortly before the crusade, the teenager had been arrested for participating in a lunch-counter sit-in and jailed for five days.

From The Daily Beast

The only downtown lunch counter where black people had sat in this century was at Union Station.

From The Daily Beast

And whilst he helt her back, they packed me acrosst the platform and up-stairs into one of them rooms over the lunch-counter.

From Project Gutenberg

He claims that he was doped; that somebody dropped something into his supper coffee at the station lunch counter.

From Project Gutenberg

Taking his seat on one of the high stools at the lunch counter, he ordered some supper.

From Project Gutenberg

"You better take him in a cup of hot coffee, Sinkers," suggested Andy to the lunch-counter boy.

From Project Gutenberg

The odd jobs about saloons which are usually done for beer-payment he performed under the inspiration of the free-lunch counter.

From Project Gutenberg