Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

hash house

American  

noun

Slang.

  1. an inexpensive restaurant, diner, or the like, that serves a limited number of short-order dishes.

    We stopped for lunch at a roadside hash house.
hash house British  

noun

  1. slang a cheap café or restaurant

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of hash house

An Americanism dating back to 1865–70

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It’s another hash house on the road to success.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 23, 2016

“But rather than turn the Colony into a hash house, I prefer to close.”

From New York Times • Jun. 16, 2016

Granted, Planet Hollywood is not your average hash house.

From Time Magazine Archive

With her ashtray complex working overtime, Suzy makes a bachelor girl's flat out of an abandoned 16-ft. boiler and starts slinging ham & eggs at the local hash house.

From Time Magazine Archive

But explanations were in order—apologies, too—and over a bowl of chili at the Kansas City hash house that Dick liked best, the Eagle Buffet, Dick supplied them.

From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.