lunch counter

noun

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

Origin of lunch counter

First recorded in 1865–70

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

On Thursday morning, the first person at the lunch counter ordered 30 sandwiches.
A shortage of workers at Williamsburg’s iconic Cheese Shop has forced the unthinkable: No more sandwiches | Gregory S. Schneider | December 18, 2021 | Washington Post
There, Allen and her sister could sit and order hamburgers with their mother at a lunch counter.
The astonishing ubiquity of Debbie Allen | Ashley Fetters | May 14, 2021 | Washington Post
Along with the Queensbridge Houses, the neighborhood holds a mix of taxi dealerships, ambulance repair shops, and old-fashioned lunch counters.
At New York City’s biggest power plant, a switch to clean energy will help a neighborhood breathe easier | Andrew Blum | February 2, 2021 | 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.
Religious Freedom, or a License to Discriminate? | Gene Robinson | March 23, 2014 | 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.
How the Children of Birmingham Changed the Civil-Rights Movement | Lottie L. Joiner | May 2, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST

The only downtown lunch counter where black people had sat in this century was at Union Station.
The Washington I Once Knew | Carl Bernstein | January 20, 2009 | 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.
Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher | Eleanor Gates
He claims that he was doped; that somebody dropped something into his supper coffee at the station lunch counter.
The Wreckers | Francis Lynde
Taking his seat on one of the high stools at the lunch counter, he ordered some supper.
The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers | Claude A. Labelle
"You better take him in a cup of hot coffee, Sinkers," suggested Andy to the lunch-counter boy.
The Nerve of Foley | Frank H. Spearman
The odd jobs about saloons which are usually done for beer-payment he performed under the inspiration of the free-lunch counter.
To Him That Hath | Leroy Scott

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