The humburger: it comes from where.

70% roots of the modern hamburger go back to the German city of Hamburg. According to historians, German immigrants to the United States brought the recipe for a dish of raw chopped beef mixed with egg. The Germans learned about the dish, now called Steak Tartare, from Russian sailors who visited Hamburg and brought along an appetite for food from their homeland. The Russians apparently learned of the dish from the nomadic Tartars.

By the time it reached the New World, a hamburg steak was shredded or chopped beef shaped into a patty that was broiled with onions and spices. The first documented mention of hamburg steak in the United States was in the 1830s. It was served at Delmonico's, an expensive restaurant in New York City, for the price of 10 cents. In 1896, hamburg steak was included for the first time in the famous cookbook of Boston chef Fannie Farmer.

More than one person has claimed to be the creator of the modern hamburger sandwich. At various times in the late 1800s and early 1900s, cooks (or their descendants) from Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ohio, and Texas boasted of inventing the hamburger.

A theme repeated in some of the stories is that customers wanted a quick meal that was easy to carry. Charlie Nagreen's family claims he invented the hamburger in Wisconsin in 1885, when he was only fifteen years old. He fried ground beef in butter and served it between two slices of bread at the Outgamie County Fair. Charlie continued to sell his hamburgers at the fair for the next 64 years. In New Haven, Connecticut, in 1900, the owner of Louis' Lunch supposedly invented the hamburger when his customers asked for something tasty and quick to serve. That is what the grandson of Louis, and current owner of the small restaurant, claimed 90 years later when the restaurant was still in business.

Another theme is that hamburgers were invented when a creative cook ran out of the usual ingredients and had to improvise. One day in 1892 at the Summit County Fair, Frank Menches and his brother Charles, of Akron, Ohio, ran out of sausage for sandwiches and substituted ground beef instead. Their switch was so popular with customers that they began to specialize in beef sandwiches. When Frank died in 1951, his obituary in the newspaper reported he earned a small fortune from his hamburgers.

The most widely reported story about the origin of the hamburger comes from the 1904 World's Fair. Fletcher Davis and his wife Giddy, from Athens, Texas, set up a food counter and sold hamburgers with hot mustard and a slice of onion. An article about the fair in St. Louis was published in a New York newspaper, and it mentioned the sale of hamburgers but failed to include the name of the cook. Since then, the whole world has come to know the hamburger, but no one will ever know with absolute certainty who really created it!

 

 

THE GUEST ROOM PAYMENT

There are three ways a guest room can be paid for. The first, and most common, is by credit card. The credit card is obtained at the time of booking and is used as a guarantee for some forms of reservations. Most hotel com­puter systems can check to ensure that each card is valid and that a sufficient amount of credit is available on the card. This is called obtaining a card approval. Based on the number of nights needed on the reservation and the rate that it was booked at, the computer can calculate the approval based simply on the anticipated revenue.

The second method of payment is cash. Guests choosing not to use a credit card may provide a cash deposit prior to or at the time of check-in. Cash payments should be collected prior to assigning the guest room. For security and fraud concerns, the hotel will require the full room rate, taxes, and what is referred to as anticipated usage amount. This usage amount is the cash deposit required to cover estimated use of hotel facilities and servic­es (e.g., in-room phones, in-room movies, room service, etc.). Guests wish­ing to "sign" these and other services to their room must provide additional cash. Guests choosing not to do this may face their phones and movies being turned off, room service will require a payment at the time of delivery, and so on.

Checks, which are simply a form of cash payment, can be verified in a man­ner similar to credit cards. Funds to cover personal checks can be verified through the issuing banks. Traveler's checks and certified checks do not need approvals because they are issued in exchange for payment at the time of issuance.

The third method of payment is less reliant on the front desk, but is a valid method of payment. Direct billing allows an individual or group to pay for goods/services incurred during a stay or function at a later date. Within a hotel, guests and groups are routinely extended credit. Each time a guest checks in with a credit card as a method of payment, the hotel provides goods/services under the assumption that the credit card company will reim­burse it at a later date.

Groups with direct billing privileges may have their attendees' room charges included on their bill. This may be in addition to planned banquet or outlet/ancillary charges. The individual with direct billing may only be billed their outstanding guest account. Extending direct billing privileges requires that the hotel impose proper credit guidelines. The credit approval process must be strictly adhered to in order to ensure that no credit is extended to an individual or organization unable to pay, called a credit risk.

PART II

UNIT IV. The Front Office

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