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A New Old Freebie - Matches Surge as Restaurant Giveaways  

Ms. Savitsky's experience is echoed by a number of restaurateurs across the country, who concur that matches may be experiencing a fragile renaissance as the dining world's freebie of choice and its most cost-effective and appealing advertising vehicle.

If smoking was their sole raison d'être, restaurant matches should by all rights have disappeared by now. After being overtaken by the disposable lighter, they have run into smoking bans of varying severity. (Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia now have laws prohibiting smoking in restaurants, according to the American Lung Association, and local jurisdictions impose their own smoke-free rules.)

Yet matches appear to be struggling back from the brink to reassert their pre-eminence among the rabble of coasters, business cards, cocktail napkins and swizzle sticks charged with hawking a restaurant's good name. In an era of instant information access and viral publicity, logo-bearing matches may have the edge as ambassadors that convey distinction in their very physicality.

"When a state or municipality imposes a ban, we see a hesitation in reordering and a fall-off in new business," said Mark Nackman, the owner and president of AdMatch, an importer based in New York City. "Then the volumes start to creep back up, so that within a year or so we see some resurgence in statewide sales. Matches have universal appeal, and that's the mystery -- that one little package could resonate with familiarity, maybe beauty, and a feeling of value."

Jonathan Bradley, president of Bradley Industries, a manufacturer of promotional books and boxes based in Frankfort, Ill., said: ""When matches are gone, people miss them and ask for them to be brought back. They're collectibles.

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