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A Yahoo! Search on "term origin blue plate special" resulted in this pithy article by Kevin Reed, a writer for Suite101.com. Mr. Reed contributed the article to The Bees Knees, a resource for "collectors in the secondary market of restaurant ware china and diner ware collectibles." The term dates back to the early days of diner history. The original fast-food restaurants, diners were mobile food wagons that began swarming U.S. cities in the late 19th century. They were dubbed "diners" because of their similarity to the dining cars in
trains. The original blue plates were manufactured during the Depression. Much like today's TV dinner trays, the plates were disposable and were sectioned -- one well for meat, one for a starch, and one for a vegetable. But perhaps more importantly, they were only available in blue. Diner hosts used them to promote daily specials (and save dishwashing time). Are any of these blue plates available for purchase, say, on the Internet? An excellent question. We were unable to find any at the Bees Knees Auction Gallery, which features choice collectibles like plates from Little Joe's in San Francisco, as well as something called a Retro Googie
Curtis Butter Pat. Perhaps they were all thrown away.
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