carriage trade

the carriage trade

Affluent patrons of a store, restaurant, or other such establishment. The name refers to the usual mode of transportation for wealthy people in bygone eras. Don't worry about this slight economic downturn—the carriage trade will keep us in business.
See also: carriage, trade
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

carriage trade

The best customers. Restaurants, stores, and other establishments were especially pleased to serve wealthy customers who arrived and departed in their own private horse and carriage, as distinguished from people who came and went by foot or public transportation. It was the purchasing power of the carriage trade that produced a reaction from the establishment's personnel that was solicitous to the point of obsequiousness.
See also: carriage, trade
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
See also:
  • the carriage trade
  • wait at table
  • wait on table
  • wait tables
  • wait (on) tables
  • bygone
  • bygone days
  • clip joint
  • take the Browns to the Super Bowl
  • days gone by
References in periodicals archive
Paul's 'carriage trade' in flowers, and Mary Marum Hampl, a cynical Irishwoman who taught her how to spin a story, and offers up profound truths about the way her parents shaped her sensibilities." MICHELE GREN
Catering to the carriage trade, the store stocked service meats and a wide assortment of groceries, and provided home delivery of orders phoned in by Upper East Side residents.
Our Vic is a huge horse, 17 hands at the shoulder, 550 kilos on the weighbridge, and with the big broad head and wide-beam hips of an honest toiler in the carriage trade.
It is targeting two main channels of distribution: upscale, independent retailers and the carriage trade, "retailers that value high-enddesign and embellished product." A recently signed agreement with OneCoast will help bring the line to these specialty steres, Moore said.
Undemanding in the extreme, show may appeal to what's left of the West End carriage trade, as served up in an Alan Strachan production every bit as broad as Lipman's (padded) hips.
Extra wrapping would have solved this problem but they wouldn't give me extra wrapping because I was local, it was really for the carriage trade.
Meticulously researched and impressively written, The Carriage Trade: Making Horse-Drawn Vehicles In America by Thomas A.
Their discontent found voice in the mouth and person of Jim Crow, who mocked the carriage trade.
(27.) "Not Just the Carriage Trade: Jewelry is shifting from a class to a mass business," Barron's (19 April 1965), 3.
"The wood, leather, and chrome found in today's interiors are throwbacks to the earliest days of the automobile, when it was little advanced from the carriage trade," he says.
Reynolds first came to the Bay Area in 1980 on the staff of John Walker & Co., a carriage trade retail store in San Francisco.
"We've taken the concept from the carriage trade to the mass market, with department store quality at premium mass market prices," he says.
As far as tea goes, the carriage trade still gets its supplies from Temples of Gastronomy like Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, and the specialty tea trade has a market share of anything up to 13% and growing as public tastes move up a notch or two.
Heilbrun said Gristede's "caters to the carriage trade. The same customer who shops on Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue in New York summers in Southhamption" -- a chic vacation spot on Long Island.
"The plans are still at an early stage, but before we move forward we want to know what members of the Hackney carriage trade think about them.