The Menger Connection
The Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company was, from 1920 onward, a Menger family enterprise — a thread that connects the Menger Hotel dynasty of the 1850s to a coffee roastery on Delaware Street that the family would run for half a century.
William R. Hoffmann married Minnie Menger in 1909, bringing the Menger family into the business before the 1912 incorporation. When Hoffmann died the same year the company was chartered, Minnie stayed on as Vice-President. When W. E. Hayman sold his interest in 1920, Gus P. Menger — Minnie’s brother, Hoffmann’s brother-in-law — became President. By 1923 the four Menger brothers (Gus P., Rudolph W., T. J., and L. B.) held every senior role in the company.
Gus P. Menger remained President for forty years, from 1920 until May 1960, when his son Albert G. Menger succeeded him. The 1932 Express-News called the company “a small but growing institution that has grown to large proportions under his wise management.” The 1959 San Antonio Light profiled him at the Delaware Street cupping table; the UTSA photograph shows him and Albert testing coffee in what the project dates to c. 1948.
The Mengers didn’t just inherit the company — they built it into a regional roaster serving 150 Texas cities.