A blue-plate special is a discount-priced meal that changes daily. The practice was common from the 1920s in American and Canadian restaurants through the 1950s, especially in diners and greasy spoons . As of 2007[update], there are still a few restaurants and diners that offer blue-plate specials under that name, sometimes on blue plates, but it is a vanishing tradition.
A collection of 1930s prose gives this definition: "A Blue Plate Special is a low-priced daily diner special — a main course with all the fixins, a daily combo, a square for two bits."[1]