Source: Unless otherwise noted, all text and image sources come from UBS's historical archives. Personnel and anniversary publications as well as annual reports form in essence the basis. In Switzerland, nearly one in eight people now eats in a communal catering establishment once a day. Staff restaurants have had a significant impact on lunch-break eating habits.
Large industrial companies started providing canteens for their employees in the s as shift working was more widely introduced, and in the s, with continuous working hours becoming the norm, more and more large service companies also began to offer staff catering. Within a few years, the short meal break in the staff restaurant had replaced the two-hour lunch break at home. In the same year, Swiss Bank Corporation also opened its first staff restaurant, on Paradeplatz in Zurich, with a panoramic view of the city.
To put this in context, the average monthly pay of a bank clerk in those days was CHF 1, At the beginning of the week, Union Bank of Switzerland employees were given a voucher card with the set meals that they could order for each day. In , the Union Bank of Switzerland staff restaurant at Bahnhofstrasse 45 was an attractively laid-out and tastefully furnished dining establishment, and was divided into three rooms to enable congestion-free serving even at peak times.
From the restaurant, diners could enjoy an unrivalled view of the city. To encourage dental hygiene, special booths were set up in the Culinarium canteens in Bern and Aarau where diners could brush their teeth after lunch using the electric toothbrushes provided. Obviously, diners had to provide their own brush heads. The Culinarium kitchen staff have won multiple awards and consistent recognition at international exhibitions of culinary art. One year after the move to continuous working hours, most people were enthusiastic about the canteen lunches.
By taking up residence in this prestigious property, the firm, now almost years old, sought to present a reflection of its successful growth. For the first ten years of its existence Swiss television was commercial-free. On 1 February , the first commercial break was shown. Union Bank of Switzerland was among the first companies to use the advertising medium, along with Pepsi, Ovomaltine and Opel even though there had initially been a debate at the bank over using TV advertising.
