Blue-plate special
North American term for low-cost meal
A blue-plate special is a discount-priced meal that changes daily. The practice was common from the 1920s in American and Canadian restaurants through the 1950s, especially in diners and greasy spoons. As of 2026, there are still a few restaurants and diners that offer blue-plate specials under that name, sometimes on blue plates, but it is a vanishing tradition.
A collection of 1930s prose gives this definition: "A Blue Plate Special is a low-priced daily diner special — a main course with all the fixins, a daily combo, a square for two bits."
History
The origin and explanation of the phrase are unclear.
Etymologist Michael Quinion cites a dictionary entry indicating that the blue plates were, more specifically, inexpensive divided plates that were decorated with a "blue willow" or similar blue pattern, such as those popularized by the more expensive Spode and Wedgwood. One of his correspondents says that the first known use of the term is on an October 22, 1892, Fred Harvey Company restaurant menu and implies that blue-plate specials were regular features at Harvey Houses in the late 19th century. Alternatively, Kevin Reed says that "during the Depression, a manufacturer started making plates with separate sections for each part of a meal — like a TV dinner tray — it seems that for whatever reason they were only available in the color blue."
The term became common starting in the late 1920s. A May 27, 1926 advertisement in The New York Times for "The Famous Old Sea Grill Lobster and Chop House" at 141 West 45th Street promised "A La Carte All Hours", "Moderate Prices", and "Blue Plate Specials". A December 2, 1928, article, lamenting the rise in prices that had made it difficult to "dine on a dime," praised an Ann Street establishment where one could still get "a steak-and-lots-of-onion sandwich for a dime" and a "big blue-plate special, with meat course and three vegetables, is purchasable for a quarter, just as it has been for the last ten years." The first book publication of Damon Runyon's story, "Little Miss Marker," was in a 1934 collection titled Damon Runyon's Blue Plate Special. A Hollywood columnist wrote in 1940, "Every time Spencer Tracy enters the Metro commissary, executives and minor geniuses look up from their blue plate specials to look at the actor and marvel."
"No substitutions" was a common policy on blue-plate specials.
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