Stephen Fried. Appetite for America: Fred Harvey Civilizing the West–One Meal at a Time. New York: Bantam Books, 2010. 528 pages.
If you’ve driven from LA to Las Vegas and wondered what the “Harvey House” sign in Barstow was all about, here’s the scoop: from roughly 1876 to 1930, many train passengers took their meal in depot-adjacent restaurants run by Fred Harvey, known as Harvey Houses. The Barstow rail depot is one of the few remaining Harvey Houses, and it houses two museums. If you want to know more about Fred Harvey, this book is a must-read.
In APPETITE FOR AMERICA, Stephen Fried puts together a compelling narrative of a massive, influential, but nearly-forgotten American food service giant, Fred Harvey. Even though it’s a mammoth read (528 pages), the book’s level of detail is worth the investment in time. Because Harvey is, for most readers, an obscure company operating in a distant era, Fried has to recreate both the company’s operations and put the company into its proper economic, social, and political context. So this isn’t just a book about a restaurant chain–it’s a book about the rise and decline of a genuine family business, changing American consumer tastes, the transformation of the American West, and the last great era of railroad expansion.
Fred Harvey the company started with Fred Harvey, a British immigrant who gravitated to the railroad business before specializing in food. Trackside eating houses of the time were dirty and served sub-par food. By investing in first-class facilities, fresh ingredients, and top-level chefs, Harvey founded a culinary empire. His emphasis on rigorous training for all employees, including the trademark “Harvey Girl” waitresses, made dining at a Harvey House a consistently pleasant experience. Maybe his best customer service motto was: “We cater to cranks.” His rationale was that anyone can serve a gentleman, but it took a truly dedicated business to please difficult customers.
The book details Fred Harvey’s rise to prominence as the trackside caterer for the Santa Fe railroad and his passing the baton to the next generation, his former assistant Dave Benjamin and his son, Ford Harvey, who continued to call their company “Fred Harvey.” After Ford, the succession was a bit muddled, and a combination of uninspired leadership and bigger changes in American life led to the downfall of Fred Harvey.
All in all, it’s a fascinating read that tells the story of one of America’s most influential institutions.
This book should probably be mandatory for all casino executives, because it presents a cautionary tale of the failure of a hospitality business to adapt to new market conditions. Fred Harvey was more than a business: it was a beloved American institution that was an integral part of communities throughout the West. But it isn’t anymore, because it couldn’t grow to feed a changing public. That should be a warning to anyone running any business, so this is both a biography/history and a case study for success and failure. Good read.
“We cater to cranks.”
I love it. Could be the motto of any number of casinos in this country….
Now you just have to make the trip to the Kelso Depot! (Turn south off I-15 on Kelbaker Road at Baker and take it all the way to the depot, about a half hour drive.) Kelso had to compete with the Harvey stops, and so it is a beautiful Spanish Mission style train station in the middle of nowhere, with restored, operating cafe, and museum. You can even listen to excerpts from Doc Springer’s radio broadcasts.
And then you can feel smug in the knowledge that you are now among the elite to have ventured farther off I-15 than the Mad Greek.
This looks like a real good book, thanks for recommending it Dr. Schwartz. When the automobile industry started expanding rapidly in the 1940′s and 1950′s (along with the popularity of Route 66) it really hurt passenger transportation on railroads which probably cut into Fred Harvey’s restaurant business.
YouTube has a few videos on this Harvey subject.
* This 1946 color movie shows a fight scene between some Harvey Girls and Saloon Women (fighting on Wild West craps tables with a Wheel of Fortune in the background:
Harvey Girls – Fight Scene GoldenEraDame
* Theatrical preview of the movie:
The Harvey Girls (1946) Theatrical Trailer judygarlandmusic
* An amateur video of a guy taking his daughters to visit an old Harvey House where his grandfather was head chef:
Harvey House Tour vfxeditor
Dave,
thanks so much for your kind words about the book and your insights into what I agree are the modern lessons of Fred. just wanted to let you know I’ll be out on tour–by train of course–along the old Santa Fe route from Chicago to LA starting at the Chicago History Museum April 5. The event schedule can be found on the site for the book http://www.fredharveybook.com/tour, and I’ll also be blogging from the train at the new “One World Under Fred” blog at http://www.stephenfried.com/blog. Las Vegas, NV isn’t on the schedule at the moment (although we will be going through Las Vegas, NM–where Fred ran his first huge resort hotel, but I hope to get the chance to visit there again (several years ago I was an editorial consultant for your city magazine.)
Thanks again,
Stephen