This mildly amusing feature has a rather unfinished look, and it may never have been put into the final form that Edwin S. Porter had envisioned. It still holds up all right, although in its present form it tries to draw things out too far, and becomes a bit overdone by the time that it ends. It's very likely that it would have worked rather well at about half or two-thirds of the running time.
The story is a simple one. A group of energetic diners leaves one restaurant and catches a carriage for another, but one of the group is left behind and has to run after the carriage on foot. Since its horses pull the carriage at a relatively stately pace for much of the time, it's a fairly even race, and there are a couple of gags along the way. Among the background sights are Grant's Tomb and a look at Broadway as it was at the time.
As it is preserved in Kino's collection of Edison features, at one point there is a noticeable stretch of dead time, followed by what looks like a repeat of a previous sequence with some minor changes. This makes it appear as if some editing was meant to be done before it was released. Film historian Charles Musser says (in the notes to the DVD) that it is something of a mystery feature whose exact release date is unknown. So it seems possible that this could be an example of some raw footage that has been preserved without ever having reached a final, edited form.