H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. est. 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

The Cortez family founded and owns Mi Tierra Café & Bakery (established 1941) in San Antonio’s Market Square. Pedro and Cruz Cortez are the family’s documented principals in the H&H record. Mi Tierra is Master Chef coffee’s documented café-trade customer — the institutional-trade-customer counterpart to the Menger family network’s internal ownership of the coffee company.

A painted “MASTER / CHEF / COFFEE” vertical wall sign survives in the panadería, and a 1951 photograph shows the storefront with an exterior H and H Master Chef Coffee sign. The sign reappears in the family’s 2016 “Nuestra Cultura · 75 Años” 75th-anniversary materials — the Edible San Antonio Aug/Sep 2016 spread, the September 2016 lanyard press passes (sepia-and-burgundy stylized portraits of Pedro and Cruz Cortez set against a Mi Tierra signage montage, Al Rendón photography), and a replica entrance built for the celebration.

Open questions

  • Authorship of the 2016 painted Cortez-family portrait — Al Rendón is credited for the photography; the underlying painting attribution is unconfirmed (TODO-62).
  • Whether the surviving panadería “Master Chef” wall sign is an original period advertisement or a later mural/recreation (TODO-46).

See also