The mysterious eighty-six.
A myth with no right or wrong answers.
Hello, happy Monday.
I’m doing terribly, thank you for asking. I hope you’re enjoying your day off if you have it, or are recovering from your weekend shift.
As for me, I’m riding the struggle bus. Caffeine is my lifeline, but I’m also trying to drink more water. Progress is being made. I made the awful switch to decaf to try and con my body, and it’s going about as you’d expect.
This is a bit of a random Monday newsletter, I’ll admit, but it’s a complete tangent that will be fun to tell your friends. You’re welcome for this new piece of industry lore! Pass it around the kitchen and see if anyone has anything new to add.
I’ll be back later this week with an update and follow-up on the delivery driving story, which has taken on legs of its own. I’m in conversation with cool local folks from the Hoboken/Jersey City delivery-driving community and our local legislation. The story keeps developing, and many people have reached out with things to add to the discourse.
I’m also neck-deep in conversations with restauranteurs who use delivery as a lifeline, using it to generate the majority of their sales. I’m passionate about bringing real, rich perspectives to the topic of tech evolving in the restaurant space. I don’t want to rush anything, so as these pieces are in development, please enjoy this light amuse-bouche while you wait.
Have you ever asked yourself where the term ‘86-ed’ comes from?
You hear it all the time in restaurants — it means to run out of something, to be finished, kaput, no more.
And truly, genuinely, no one knows where it came from.
Now look, I’m a pretty good internet excavator, and I know how to utilize my local library. I spent too long on a deep-dive trying to find the truth before realizing the beauty of just letting it remain an unanswered, endless mystery. I read dozens, maybe even a hundred guesses as to the origin of this phrase.
My favorite way to collect the lore has simply been to ask everyone I know. I recommend it, the stories are wild.
Bartenders always seem to know the most. (Which checks out.)
🚕 Here are the best guesses history has to offer:
Some believe it originated in the soup kitchens of the Great Depression, where the standard pot held 85 cups of soup, so the 86th person was out of luck.
Others say that the standard height of a door frame was 8 feet 6 inches, and when a patron was shown the door, he was “86’d.”
It may have military roots, since during the Korean war it was used as a reference to the F-86 fighter jet. When an F-86 shot down an enemy plane, it was 86’d.
It gets even better!
Did it come from military shorthand? Rotary phones (which had T as the 8th key and O as the 6 key) dialed TO/86 to “throw out” something.
Is it old bartender’s lingo? I heard 100-proof alcohol would be replaced with 86-proof liquor when a patron got too drunk in the saloons of the Wild West.
It has also been said that ‘a pinch of Old Eighty-Six’, a common shaving powder, added to the drink of a drunkard would send him out the door sober. I like this one, although it sounds dubious.
It seems likely the term was birthed in New York, since many theories refer to old NYC establishments, mostly speakeasies.
It may have come from a specific Prohibition-era speakeasy, 86 Bedford Street’s Chumley’s. When cops arrived at the door, guests would flee the establishment out of the 86th Street entrance.
Did it come from the Empire State Building, which had no fence on the 86th floor?
This theory seems likely to me: there was a local code, Code 86, that made it a crime for bartenders to continue selling alcohol to drunken guests. Apologetically, bartenders would gently let wasted guests know they’d been 86’ed. (Admittedly I can find nothing concrete on this supposed code.)
Did it come from Delmonico’s? #86 on the menu was the most popular steak, selling out consistently. It became shorthand for running out of a menu item, perhaps?
Other miscellaneous theories include…
Light filters in the film industry, categorized by number. When filmmakers used filter 86, it was dark, to blot out the entire image.
The standard depth of a grave is 86 inches.
Coded numbers in the teletype days were used as shorthand. 86 indicated an item sent in error that needed to be discarded.
The electrical industry back in the day labeled their devices with numbers… #86 was a trip/lockout switch, taking a piece of equipment out of service.
Is it a mob reference to taking someone 8 miles out of town and putting them 6 feet under?
Does it come from the 86 nautical miles from shore when someone is buried out at sea?
Either way, the consensus is dramatic. The lights are off, the graves are deep, the image is dark, everyone’s gone.
There’s nothing more final than the old 86. (This might be what goes on my gravestone, to be honest.) Now go ask your coworkers and report back to me.
See you Friday!
I almost forgot, here’s a closing playlist for you.