Fred Harvey. The first restaurant chain

What was the first restaurant chain?

What do you think the first restaurant chain was, some might say McDonalds, some might say Wendys, heck, some might even say J’s Carry Out. But you would all be wrong, because the first restaurant was named, The Harvey House. Here’s how it happened.

Back in the 1870’s, train travel was very popular. It could get you where you wanted to go, when you wanted. It had it’s problem though. People get hungry, and you could only eat during the 1 hour period when the train was stopped. Because of this, many people didn’t get back in time and had to wait days for the next train. People who did get back were normally still hungry because of the low quality food available to the public.

Fred Harvey worked as an entrepreneur for the railroad and noticed this poor quality of food and wanted to change it. He wanted to create a new way to get food to the people, in mass quantities, a railway diner that would spread across the country. He first took his idea to the railroad itself and they turned it down. He then tried the Santa Fe railroad advisor, Charles F. Morse who loved the idea and put it into plan right away.

“Harvey House” restaurants exploded onto the map. It was something nobody had tried before, a restaurant chain. They were so popular because of the high quality of food and the good service. In 1877 Harvey decided to buy a hotel to improve his business even farther.

The all male staff was being made fun of so he replaced them with “The Harvey Girls”. They were an all-female staff respected for their good nature, morals and service. One final thing that was the icing on the cake, jackets were provided so everyone looked up to par with the fashion of the time and looked propper.

The Harvey house chain closed down due to rising demand for automobiles until the company know as Xenoterra bought the Harvey House franchise which is open today under new managment.

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https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/harvey-house-restaurants/16712

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http://harvey-house.info/

"A Harvey House Home Page." A Harvey House Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

http://www.harveyhouses.net/