For five cents a pint mug of the best Java coffee, with milk and sugar, and a good-sized roll, were furnished.
From the very start "The Workingmen's Central Coffee-House," as Mr.
Baily called it, was successful.

In the immediate neighborhood five hundred workmen were employed on the city buildings, and opposite stood the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot, to which came daily about the same number of men--draymen, teamsters and others.

It took but a few days to so crowd the new coffee-room at the usual lunching time as to require an additional assistant.

From day to day the business went on increasing, until more help and larger accommodations became necessary.
Soon a complete kitchen had to be built in the basement, and the adjoining store added, in order to meet the steadily-enlarging demands upon the new establishment.

The fame of the good coffee, which was better than most people found at home, spread far and near, and larger and larger numbers of clerks, workingmen and others, turned their steps daily, at lunch time, towards the Central Coffee-House.