In the penthouse of 5th Avenue in New York—just a block north of St. An ad from In , he sold the team to a Cleveland sports businessman, Nick Mileti, who already owned two Cleveland teams, including the Cavaliers.
Litton was then sold to Nestle S. Go to case. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Article Categories. Top of the Sixes was well known for its spectacular views and celebrity patrons, and was even the setting of a memorable scene in memoir-turned-film Wolf of Wall Street.
All of the "Top of" restaurants have now all closed, with Boston's Top of the Hub lasting the longest and closing in March of In the 's, Stouffer's also had a short lived expansion into the hospitality industry, opening a series of upscale hotels and resorts. This diversity of offerings really only lasted a few years after opening the hotels, when the company decided to concentrate their focus on the increasingly profitable frozen food market. Ohio History Central states that Stouffer's frozen food division got its start after World War II, when the company began selling take-home meals out of one of their Cleveland locations.
Stouffer's volume of frozen food business grew so quickly that, in , the company built a pilot processing plant in downtown Cleveland. That year, the company was officially named Stouffer Foods Corporation.
In , Stouffer made its first venture into the hotel business with the purchase of Fort Lauderdale, Florida's Anacapri Inn. The move gave the company three divisions: Stouffer Hotel Co. The restaurant group launched its "top" restaurants in the s.
These eateries were located atop skyscrapers in major cities, combining fine dining with a view of the city. By , there were six such restaurants around America. As more and more women entered the work force after World War II, homemakers had less time to prepare elaborate meals, and demand for convenience foods rose. To meet the increased production requirements, Stouffer constructed a highly automated and modernized frozen food plant in on a acre site in Solon, Ohio, just south of Cleveland.
In the late s, Stouffer's consumer research showed that families with two or more children constituted a considerable segment of sales volume. Assuming a market for multi-serving packages, Stouffer developed a "Family Casserole" line serving four or more people.
But Stouffer's research didn't take trends toward split meals and split menus into account. Split meals are eaten by families with conflicting activities that are unable to eat together. Split menu diners eat at the same time, but not all of the family members eat the same thing. The larger families that purchased Stouffer's products were not necessarily eating multiple packages of a single product, but utilizing the single-serving packages for split meals and menus.
Although the Family Casserole line was basically a failure, it did launch frozen lasagna, which became an instant success in single- and double-serving sizes. The frozen foods division earned the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration's endorsement when Stouffer's products were chosen to feed Apollo 11, 12, and 14 astronauts while in quarantine after their history-making space voyages.
Advertising at the time exploited Stouffer's support of the space program with the tag line, "Everybody who's been to the moon is eating Stouffer's. But unlike Stouffer's other two divisions, the hotel group's image had deteriorated.
In , former hotel busboy and ex-Marine William Hulett was appointed to the presidency of the hotel group. Hulett embarked on a revitalization of the hotel chain by terminating its franchising program and liquidating seven struggling franchised holdings.
He then began a decade-long acquisitions spree that brought several prestigious hotels into the Stouffer group, including: Washington, D. Stouffer Foods had become America's leading manufacturer of premium quality frozen foods by the early s. To meet growing consumer demand, the company increased its production capacity in , building a frozen foods plant in Gaffney, South Carolina. Noting growing sales of diet foods and drinks in the s, Stouffer Foods began research and development for a product that revolutionized the frozen food industry.
Almost a decade of consumer and demographic research directed the brand extension. Focus groups indicated the things that dieters didn't like about low-calorie food: inferior taste, unappealing appearance, meager portions, and lack of variety.
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