Dairy bar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dairy bar (Polish: bar mleczny - literally milk bar (though not to be confused with Milk bar) is a typically Polish kind of a cafeteria. They were invented by the communist authorities of Poland in the mid-1960s as a means of offering cheap meals to people working in companies that had no official canteen. Its name originates from the fact that until the late 1980s the meals served there were mostly dairy-based and vegetarian (especially during the period of martial law at the beginning of the 1980s, when meat was rationed).
During the post-war years, most restaurants were nationalized and then closed down by the communist authorities. The prevalent idea at that time was to provide all people with cheap meals at the place of their work. Although, unlike in Soviet Union or many other states of the Soviet Bloc, Poland never saw the emergence of meal factories, each large company, school or university had a canteen. At times the price of the meals served there was included in a worker's salary. However, there was also a large group of people working in smaller firms that had no canteen at their disposal. Because of this, during the tenure of Władysław Gomułka, the authorities created a network of self-service small eateries. The meals, subsidized by the state, were cheap and readily available to everyone.
Apart from raw or processed dairy products, the milk bars also served egg (omelet or egg cutlets), cereal (kasza) or flour (pierogi) based meals. After the communist system was dismantled and the shortage economy ended, the majority of milk bars went bankrupt as they were superseded by normal restaurants. However, some of them were preserved as part of the relics of the welfare state so as to support the poorer parts of Polish society. Currently every major Polish city has at least one "milk bar" somewhere in the city centre. They are all subsidized by the state (an amount of 20 millions złoty a year is often cited[citation needed]) and often by city authorities as well. They are popular among the elderly, pensioners, homeless, but also students or university professors.
Owing to subventions, the prices are considerably lower than other bars or restaurants. A typical dinner consisting of three courses and a dessert usually costs less than 10 złotys, as opposed to over 50 in the average restaurant. Despite being considered fast-food outlets, modern milk bars still serve traditional meals of the Polish cuisine, which take a relatively long time to prepare, making them more an example of slow food bars.
