Book Review: Appetite for America

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.

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