Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) second-class; small .

1917		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 8 Mar. [synd. col.] A little hole in the wall delicatessen on Avenue A.
1934		M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 17 Nov. 12/3: One of those Harlem hole-in-the-wall places.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 237: They passed hole-in-the-wall bars, Chinese laundries, poolrooms with a few loafers in front.
1952		I, Mobster 45: I cornered a rock-headed Neapolitan that had been starving to death in his hole-in-the-wall grocery in our block for twenty years.
1957		H. Nielsen ‘Decision’ in Best of Manhunt (2019) [ebook] Long hours with late dinners in some hole-in-the-wall restaurant.
1961		W.R. Burnett Round the Clock at Volari’s 46: [T]he business district [...] had badly run to seed and was crammed with rooming-houses, cheap stores, hole-in-the-wall bars.
1992		(con. 1916-19) M.W. Harris Gospel Blues 65: [T]he blues [...] had previously been relegated to hole-in-the-wall joints.
2017		V. McDermid Insidious Intent (2018) 101: ‘It was bought in a hole-in-the-wall shop in Dudley’.