Cseri Miklós (szerk.): A Resti. Skanzen füzetek 5. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2011)

The modern restaurant originated in 1782 in France. The name is Linked with an inn-keeper who refused to follow the guild's rules and started to serve bouillons, which allegedly restored the sick. The meaning of the French word 'restaurant' is 'restorer'. The railway restaurant's colloquial name is 'resti' in Hungary, derived from the mentioned French word 'restaurant'. The 'resti' used to be an essential part of a railway journey. At the beginning the trains spent enough time at the stations so that passengers could have a meal in the railway restaurant at ease. 116 railway restaurant served the guests in 1902 along the tracks of the MÁV (Hungarian State Railway) and the categories of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class were introduced in that same year. Such dishes as the wiener schnitzel (meat fried in breadcrumbs], the rissole, the huge unsweetened round cake (pogácsa), the different types of goulash soup, further, the draught beer, the wine spritzer and the raspberry syrup with soda water became popular due to the standard offer in the railway restaurants. The tables used to be covered with white cloths at the beginning, later outdone by checked table-cloths, which has become part of the classical image of a 'resti' up to now.