When a Beer Was a Dime

The Breezy Hill Cafe (now Lucky's Pizza) was the local watering hole for the people of Foster, Rhode Island for generations. When I was a kid, the bar, known to locals simply as "Breezy," was synonymous with debauchery. I recall looking out of the back seat window of my family’s Plymouth Voyager and seeing more than one "skirmish" between patrons in the parking lot as we drove by. We would hear stories of fights getting so out of hand that they would spill out the door into the middle of Rte. 6, a busy highway. By most accounts, Breezy Hill Cafe was rough around the edges. It was also the kind of place where you could expect to have a few laughs and catch a buzz with your pals. I suspect that if it had been around when I entered my own hell-raising years, I would have stopped in a time or two to see what all the fuss was about.

It is hard to say how old this token is. Trade tokens were popular from the time of the Civil War all the way through the Great Depression and beyond. Judging by the value and the fact that it is made from aluminum (before 1886, aluminum was one of the most expensive metals in the world but by the 1920s had dropped from $12 per pound to $0.77 per pound), I would say it is at least from the 1930s or ‘40s. It is very possible that these were still in use during the 1950s and ‘60s, but by then a dime certainly wouldn't get you very much beer!

If anyone has any info about these, feel free to comment!