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The article analyzes two public dining halls in Mexico City in the 1940s and 1950s and examines how the middle-class reformers and working-class comensales negotiated modernity and how food practices transformed class identity and gender in the city. Public dining halls were established by the Ministry of Public Health and Assistance as a way to transform the eating habits of the working class. There were strategies to attract diners, such as radio spots, fliers, door to door invitations and the support of the Catholic Church. Rules enforced by state employees and social workers had to be followed. Manners, such as using cutlery instead of using tortillas to scoop up food and eating international cuisine, had to be learned by the diners.