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MUFSO predicted the future, showed off new technology for first attendees

MUFSO predicted the future, showed off new technology for first attendees

As we celebrate 50 years of MUFSO, it would seem easy to assess the kind of progress that has been made in the restaurant industry since then.

If nothing else, foodservice is a lot bigger now, with $550 billion in sales in 2008.The January 1959 issue of Chain Store Age, Restaurant and Fountain Executives Edition estimated 1958 sales at $3.5 billion. That publication was Nation’s Restaurant News’ predecessor. MUFSO even predates NRN, which was launched in 1967.

Of course, a dollar went a lot further back then, and at the 1959 Multi-Unit Food Service Operators conference, E. Gage, executive vice president of Walter Reade Restaurants, was asked during a panel discussion on merchandising, how he managed to pull down a $7.10 check average at dinner and $3.40 at lunch at his “luxury-dining place” in a shopping center. Gage said he had arranged fashion shows every Monday, doing cross-promotions with clothing and department stores.

We’ve made some technological advances since the 1959 conference, which was held in Chicago in conjunction with the National Restaurant Association convention on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 13.

A highlight of the meeting, promised in promotional materials, was a color filmstrip produced for the confab and “designed to give new waitresses a good look at the right and wrong ways to do their job.”

It was narrated by Vaughan Alexander, director of luncheonette operations for W.T. Grant Co., who was the event’s chairman. The presiding chairman was Harold Bode, director of restaurant operations for F.W. Woolworth. The event reportedly had more than 400 attendees.

Executives from Toddle House, White Castle, Cunningham Drug Stores, Beverlee Corp., J.R. Thompson Co., Nedicks, Slater System, J.J. Newberry, Haag Drug, S.S. Kresge Co., and Waldorf System also sat on panels at the event—and that’s all the event was: three panels, followed by an “informal get-together” hosted by Chain Store Age at the Lake Shore Athletic Club.

All of the panelists were Caucasian males, except for one, Jean Wade Rindlaub, a “guest speaker” from BB&O advertising agency, who reportedly “continually expressed the importance of romancing food and personalizing it to the customers who dine out.”

The challenges facing foodservice operators then seemed to be the ones facing operators now, and the conference theme, “Keeping Pace With a Changing America,” could be used today. The panels addressed personnel, merchandising and improving efficiency.

When it came to personnel, I.B. Waldrep, food service director for Cunningham Drug Co., predicted women would play more important roles in the coming years, “not only in preparation and serving capacities, but in management jobs as well.”

The operators in 1959 were right about a lot of their operations, and much of what they expected has, in fact, come to pass.

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