Horn & Hardart
Encyclopedia
Horn & Hardart was a food services company of the USA noted for operating the first food service automat
s in Philadelphia and New York City
.
Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861–1941) and German-born, New Orleans-raised, Frank Hardart opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia on December 22, 1888. The small (11 x 17 feet) lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools.
By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style French-drip coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction. News of the coffee spread, and the business flourished. They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898.
restaurant in the USA in Philadelphia on June 12, 1902, borrowing the concept of automatic food service from a successful German establishment, Berlin's Quisiana Automat. The first New York Automat opened in Times Square July 2, 1912. Later that week, another opened at Broadway and East 14th Street, near Union Square.
In 1924, Horn & Hardart opened retail stores to sell prepackaged automat favorites. Using the advertising slogan "Less Work for Mother," the company popularized the notion of easily-served "take-out" food as an equivalent to "home-cooked" meals.
The Horn & Hardart Automats were particularly popular during the Depression era
when their macaroni and cheese, baked beans and creamed spinach were staple offerings. In the 1930s, union conflicts resulted in vandalism, as noted by Christopher Gray in The New York Times:
By the time of Horn's death in 1941, the business had 157 retail shops and restaurants in the Philadelphia and New York areas and served 500,000 patrons a day. During the 1940s and the 1950s, more than 50 New York Horn & Hardart restaurants served 350,000 customers a day.
In 1953 the company split into two independent corporations. The New York company was named the Horn & Hardart Company while the Philadelphia company was named the Horn & Hardart Baking Company. New York was traded on the American Stock Exchange and Philadelphia was traded on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.
Carolyn Hughes Crowley described the appeal of the Automats:
restaurants. By the mid-1970s, at some locations, Burger King
franchises replaced the automats. Horn & Hardart further expanded its fast food operations in 1981, with its acquisition of the Bojangles' Famous Chicken n' Biscuits restaurants, which it sold to a California investment company in 1990 for $20 million. The last New York Horn & Hardart Automat (on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue) closed in April 1991. Horn & Hardart continued to own a catalog division; it renamed itself Hanover Direct in 1993.
and New Jersey
. The Horn & Hardart Coffee Co. closed its last coffee shop in 2005.
Bamn!, a version of the current automats used in the Netherlands, was located in New York's East Village at 37 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, but has since closed.
, a variety show with a cast of children (including some who later as adults became well-known performers). The program was broadcast first on WCAU Radio in Philadelphia, hosted by Stan Lee Broza. It was broadcast on NBC Radio in New York
during the 1940s and 1950s. The original New York host was Paul Douglas
, succeeded by Ralph Edwards
and finally Ed Herlihy
.
The television premiere of The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour appeared on WCAU TV in Philadelphia in 1948, succeeded by WNBT(TV)
in New York in 1949, telecast on Sunday mornings. Stan Lee Broza hosted in Philadelphia and Ed Herlihy in New York. Frankie Avalon
was a frequent performer of the Children's Hour as a child prodigy trumpet player.
has displayed in its cafe an ornate 35-foot Automat section, complete with mirrors, marble and marquetry, from Philadelphia’s 1902 Horn & Hardart. In November 2002, the Museum of the City of New York
had a special Automat centennial exhibition featuring photographs, artifacts, original furniture, china and vending machine panels.
Automat
An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by coin-operated and bill-operated vending machines.-Concept:Originally, the machines took only nickels...
s in Philadelphia and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861–1941) and German-born, New Orleans-raised, Frank Hardart opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia on December 22, 1888. The small (11 x 17 feet) lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools.
By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style French-drip coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction. News of the coffee spread, and the business flourished. They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898.
Automated food
Horn and Hardart opened their first AutomatAutomat
An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by coin-operated and bill-operated vending machines.-Concept:Originally, the machines took only nickels...
restaurant in the USA in Philadelphia on June 12, 1902, borrowing the concept of automatic food service from a successful German establishment, Berlin's Quisiana Automat. The first New York Automat opened in Times Square July 2, 1912. Later that week, another opened at Broadway and East 14th Street, near Union Square.
In 1924, Horn & Hardart opened retail stores to sell prepackaged automat favorites. Using the advertising slogan "Less Work for Mother," the company popularized the notion of easily-served "take-out" food as an equivalent to "home-cooked" meals.
The Horn & Hardart Automats were particularly popular during the Depression era
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
when their macaroni and cheese, baked beans and creamed spinach were staple offerings. In the 1930s, union conflicts resulted in vandalism, as noted by Christopher Gray in The New York Times:
- In 1932 the police blamed members of the glaziers union for vandalism against 24 Horn & Hardart and Bickford's restaurants in Manhattan, including the one at 488 Eighth Avenue. Witnesses said that a passenger in a car driving by used a slingshot to damage and even break the plate glass show windows. Glaziers union representatives had complained about nonunion employees installing glass at the restaurants.
By the time of Horn's death in 1941, the business had 157 retail shops and restaurants in the Philadelphia and New York areas and served 500,000 patrons a day. During the 1940s and the 1950s, more than 50 New York Horn & Hardart restaurants served 350,000 customers a day.
In 1953 the company split into two independent corporations. The New York company was named the Horn & Hardart Company while the Philadelphia company was named the Horn & Hardart Baking Company. New York was traded on the American Stock Exchange and Philadelphia was traded on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.
Coins and chrome
These cafeterias featured prepared foods behind small glass windows and coin-operated slots, beginning with buns, beans, fish cakes and coffee. These were popular, busy restaurants, where in the late 1950s, for under $1.00, one could enjoy a large, if somewhat plain meal, purchased with nickels usually obtained from the cashier. Each stack of glass-doored dispensers had a metal cylinder that could be rotated by the staff on the other side of the vending wall, hiding the contents while they refilled each dispenser in the stack with a plate of salad, pudding, meat or vegetables. Each dispenser had a slot for one or more nickels, and a knob to rotate the nickels out of view into the internal cash box and to allow the glass door to be raised up and locked in a horizontal position for easy removal of the plate or bowl of food. Some of the rectangular dispensers were heated, some cooled. Eventually, they served lunch and dinner entrees, such as beef stew and Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. The self-service restaurants operated in the city for nearly a century.Carolyn Hughes Crowley described the appeal of the Automats:
- In huge rectangular halls filled with shiny, lacquered tables, women with rubber tips on their fingers— "nickel throwers," as they became known—in glass booths gave customers the five-cent pieces required to operate the food machines in exchange for larger coins and paper money. Customers scooped up their nickels, then slipped them into slots in the Automats and turned the chrome-plated knobs with their porcelain centers. In a few seconds the compartment next to the slot revolved into place to present the desired cold food to the customer through a small glass door that opened and closed. Diners picked up hot foods at buffet-style steam tables. The word "automat" comes from the Greek automatos, meaning "self-acting." But Automats weren’t truly automatic. They were heavily staffed. As a customer removed a compartment’s contents, a behind-the-machine human quickly slipped another sandwich, salad, piece of pie or coffee cake into the vacated chamber.
Decline
The restaurants remained popular into the 1960s with automats, sit-down waitress service restaurants, cafeterias, and bakery shops. In the late 1960s, consultants attempted to develop automats with interior decoration relevant to surrounding neighborhoods; thus, the Automat on 14th Street was decorated with psychedelic posters. The eateries began to close with the rise of fast-foodFast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...
restaurants. By the mid-1970s, at some locations, Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
franchises replaced the automats. Horn & Hardart further expanded its fast food operations in 1981, with its acquisition of the Bojangles' Famous Chicken n' Biscuits restaurants, which it sold to a California investment company in 1990 for $20 million. The last New York Horn & Hardart Automat (on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue) closed in April 1991. Horn & Hardart continued to own a catalog division; it renamed itself Hanover Direct in 1993.
Revivals
Horn & Hardart attempted to revive the automat concept with their Dine-O-Mat restaurant in New York. It closed in 1989 after less than two years in operation. More recently, the Horn & Hardart name was used for a now defunct chain of coffee shops in PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. The Horn & Hardart Coffee Co. closed its last coffee shop in 2005.
Bamn!, a version of the current automats used in the Netherlands, was located in New York's East Village at 37 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, but has since closed.
Radio and television
Beginning in 1927, Horn & Hardart sponsored a radio program, The Horn and Hardart Children's HourThe Horn and Hardart Children's Hour
The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour was a variety show with a cast of children, including some who later became well-known adult performers. It had a long run for more than three decades...
, a variety show with a cast of children (including some who later as adults became well-known performers). The program was broadcast first on WCAU Radio in Philadelphia, hosted by Stan Lee Broza. It was broadcast on NBC Radio in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during the 1940s and 1950s. The original New York host was Paul Douglas
Paul Douglas (actor)
Paul Douglas was an American actor, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Paul Douglas Fleischer.-Career:...
, succeeded by Ralph Edwards
Ralph Edwards
Ralph Livingstone Edwards was an American radio and television host and television producer.-Early career:Born in Merino, Colorado , Edwards worked for KROW-AM in Oakland, California while he was still in high school...
and finally Ed Herlihy
Ed Herlihy
Edward Joseph "Ed" Herlihy was an American newsreel narrator for Universal-International. His voice was heard in countless films on every subject, making him one of the best-known voices in broadcast history...
.
The television premiere of The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour appeared on WCAU TV in Philadelphia in 1948, succeeded by WNBT(TV)
WNBC
WNBC, virtual channel 4 , is the flagship station of the NBC television network, located in New York City. WNBC's studios are co-located with NBC corporate headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan...
in New York in 1949, telecast on Sunday mornings. Stan Lee Broza hosted in Philadelphia and Ed Herlihy in New York. Frankie Avalon
Frankie Avalon
Frankie Avalon is an American actor, singer, playwright, and former teen idol.-Career:By the time he was 12, Avalon was on U.S. television playing his trumpet. As a teenager he played with Bobby Rydell in Rocco and the Saints...
was a frequent performer of the Children's Hour as a child prodigy trumpet player.
Museums
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American HistoryNational Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. Among the items on display are the original Star-Spangled Banner and Archie Bunker's...
has displayed in its cafe an ornate 35-foot Automat section, complete with mirrors, marble and marquetry, from Philadelphia’s 1902 Horn & Hardart. In November 2002, the Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
had a special Automat centennial exhibition featuring photographs, artifacts, original furniture, china and vending machine panels.
In popular culture
- Concerto for Horn and HardartConcerto for Horn and HardartThe Concerto for Horn and Hardart is a work of Peter Schickele but is touted as a work by P. D. Q. Bach. The work is a parody of the classical double concerto but where one instrument, the hardart, uses different devices, such as plucked strings, blown whistles and popped balloons, to produce each...
is a classical music parody written by Peter SchickelePeter SchickeleJohann Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist. He is best known for his comedy music albums featuring his music that he presents as music written by the fictional composer P. D. Q...
, one of many which he attributes to the fictional composer P.D.Q. Bach. The hardart in this composition is a musical instrument which is played by dropping coins into it to retrieve the implements used to actually play the notes. The hardart is inscribed Minor Labor Matris, Latin for the real Horn & Hardart slogan "Less Work for Mother." - In the song "Colored Spade" from the musical HairHair (musical)Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
, the character Hud (a militant African-American) satirically assigns to himself various racial stereotypes including "Table cleaner at Horn & Hardart".
Further reading
- Freeland, David. "How I Love the Automat/The Place Where All the Food Is At." Life, March 22, 1928, p. 6. (Source: David Freeland, Automats, Taxi Dances and Vaudeville)
- NPR Sound Portrait: "Last Day at the Automat": Audio documentary with David Isay at the Automat on April 9. 1991
External links
- Tribute site by Lorraine B. Diehl and Marianne Hardart, great-granddaughter of Frank Hardart
- Biography of Joseph V. Horn
- Biography of Frank Hardart, Sr.
- The Automat
- 1986 photograph of Horn & Hardart Automat sign at 968 6th Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets
- Charlie Callas mentions Horn and Hardart during an appearance on The Tonight Show in 1971 shown here at about 32 seconds in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qJe9U1mN9Y