H and H Coffee

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

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San Antonio Express-News, 1 July 1985, page 29 — small Route Sales help-wanted classified: "Selling non-food items to retail store. Great company benefits with good job future. We supply company vehicle and expenses. Must have good driving record and be willing to take polygraph. Apply 601 Delaware St., 533-0103."

A 1985 help-wanted classified that names the 601 Delaware St. plant address but not the company — an unnamed route-sales operation is hiring drivers to sell non-food items to retail stores, phone 533-0103. This is thirteen years after Gus P. Menger’s August 1972 real-estate sale of the 601 Delaware property to Kenneth L. Wagner (documented on the 601 Delaware Street page), and twenty-three years after the 1962 Continental Coffee acquisition. By July 1985 the building is in use by a third-party distributor whose product line is explicitly non-food — no longer a coffee operation, no longer a foodservice operation. The clipping doesn’t name the firm, but it preserves three useful facts for any curator tracing the post-coffee history of 601 Delaware: the building was still occupied and operating as a route-sales depot in mid-1985; the routes carried non-food consumer items (not coffee, not groceries); and the operator had a city-directory-traceable phone number, 533-0103. The standard mid-1980s applicant requirements — clean driving record, willing to take a polygraph — fit any number of cash-handling route-sales tenants of the period. Worth a future cross-check against the 1985 San Antonio city directory to put a name to whoever held the line.

Transcription

ROUTE SALES Selling non-food items to retail store. Great company benefits with good job future. We supply company vehicle and expenses. Must have good driving record and be willing to take polygraph. Apply 601 Delaware St., 533-0103.

Significance

  • Address-based attestation for 601 Delaware in mid-1985. The building is still in active commercial use as a route-sales / distribution depot 13 years after the Menger family exited the property. The product line, explicitly non-food, takes it outside both the H&H/Continental Coffee lineage and the broader Master Chef Food Products foodservice business.
  • Curator follow-up: The 1985 San Antonio city directory entry for 601 Delaware St. and the reverse lookup for 533-0103 should identify the tenant — useful for filling in the post-1972 building-occupancy timeline.

Source

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