Master Chef: Hotel to Home
In 1923, E. E. Knous held the title “restaurant specialist” at Hoffmann-Hayman — four years before the Master Chef wordmark existed. The institutional coffee trade came first; the brand followed.
By 1927, H and H had a name for it. By 1932, Express-News copy described “Master Chef Cafe Coffee that you enjoy in your favorite restaurants.” By 1935 the “Cafe” suffix was gone and Master Chef was appearing in consumer-retail ads alongside H and H Blend and H and H Tea — a grocery brand with hotel origins.
The 1952 Corpus Christi Caller-Times introduction ad called Master Chef “a 25-year favorite in leading hotels, cafés and clubs of Texas.” The brand ran continuously through the 1961 Broggi advertising-record radio campaign, the 1962 “Dean of Coffee Roasters” display, and into the Continental Coffee era.
Its longest-running customer on the record: Mi Tierra Café on Market Square. The Master Chef chef’s-hat logo appears in a 1951 photograph of the Mi Tierra storefront — and again in the 2016 Edible San Antonio spread and the 2024 Witte Museum 75th-anniversary lanyard card. Seventy-plus years of one brand in one San Antonio restaurant.