grubbery

Noun

grubbery (countable and uncountable, plural grubberies)

1. (countable, slang) A basic restaurant or cookshop.
   • His strength and stamina were doubted; he was a youth of not more than 19 years of age, nearly six feet high, 12 stone in weight, but thought to have more gristle than bone: his victualling office had also been some time out of commission; however, the keen air of Hampstead, added to a good...1818, Pierce Egan, Boxiana; or, Sketches of Antient and Modern Pugilism, page 292
   • Patterned after the grubberies and saloons frequented by hungry prospectors, the restaurant satisfies hearty appetites with savory appetizers […]2007, Orange Coast Magazine, volume 33, number 2, page 197
2. (uncountable) The quality of being grasping; a tendency to grub.
   • "From thieving Arabs to Jewish grubbery, it had to be the daughter of a wheel merchant."1994, André Aciman, Out of Egypt: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, pages 75–76
   • As another comes with blue-eyed guilt, bed / dressed in morning grubbery in your mind, […]2011, Max Wallis, Modern Love, London: Flap, →ISBN, page 23