The ads tell a lot about how the industry has changed.
Over 100 years of publishing a magazine, advertisers come and go. But what’s truly noteworthy is when advertisers stick with a publication over 10 decades.
Looking back at issues of Restaurant Hospitality (née American Restaurant magazine), the ads illustrate as much about the restaurant industry at the time as the editorial content.
In 1921, for example, dishwashers were touted as “germ-killing machines,” the new-fangled contraption called a cash register promised to add by machinery, rather than by “hand and brain and pencil.” And FAMCO’s Automatic Butter Serving Machine promised to cut butter into pats, saving users 23 cents on their butter bills.
In those early years, Vulcan and Hobart Mixers were big names in kitchen equipment, as they are today.
Wyandotte Sanitary promoted cleansers because “cleanliness is a courtesy which restaurants in increasing numbers are coming to realize they owe to their guests.”
Jello-O, then Genesee Pure Foods Co., offered up Bavarian cream, rather than gelatin, and Sunsweet Prunes were recommended for stuffing fowl.
And some things never change: All-Bran Muffins (Kellogg’s) in 1935 were advertised as a natural laxative food.
Here’s a look at some of the ads from the early days of Restaurant Hospitality.
