DID YOU KNOW?
Waitresses called Harvey Girls
Location of all Hotel Harvey
Properties in RED Circles
Menu from Chicago Union Station
Building in 1945
The First Fred Harvey restaurant
in Wallace, Kansas
Now, in the aftermath of these tragedies, Harvey took a job as a sales agent with the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, which proved fortuitous. His prior knowledge working for and later owning a restaurant provided him with the necessary skills to provide a quality dining experience, something that was still rather rare in those days. Working for the railroad gave him an understanding of how freight and people moved across the country.
After observing how bad this industry needed some improvement in depot cuisine, because these operators were charging time-bound traveler’s high prices for lousy food. Fred Harvey set his mind to re-imagining how a restaurant could feed the primarily wealthy travelers in less than 30 minutes, while locomotives were loading more coal and water for the steam. Harvey’s efforts to provide well-prepared meals in attractive settings proved immediately popular, and
fever in 1865.