Stouffer’s Was Once Supremely Elegant

The Cottage Creamery Co. is a compelling name for a specialty ice cream store in the Hamptons or a coffee shop in Seattle. It’s actually the name of the Stouffer family’s first business. Abraham Stouffer set up a creamery stand in 1914. Its success encouraged him to move the business into one of the country’s first indoor shopping malls. The next venture was a full-service restaurant serving hearty sandwiches and blue-plate specials.

Restaurants in 1920’s and 1930’s relied on the blue-plate to attract customers. The meals were a daily feature of a meat or fish, potato, and a vegetable. No substitutions were allowed as the restaurant planned and bought certain ingredients in greater volumes. Blue plate special prices were attractive, and the meals changed regularly to keep diners coming back.

Early blue plates were segmented and often came in Asian motifs. The influence on TV dinner trays is obvious.

The meals were served on a plate commonly made of blue, hence the name. The plates were segmented, “Segmented plates made it easy to give meat with gravy, mashed potatoes and peas their very own real estate.” If that sounds familiar, it is of course, the layout of the first TV dinner trays.

This article continues and is an excerpt from the pop culture and food history bestseller — TV DINNERS: THE HOT HISTORY OF FROZEN MEALS.

Two sons joined the business leading to expansion in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and New York. The restaurants attracted, “diners with crowd-pleasing dishes like baked pork chops and hot butterscotch sundaes.” Dr. Richard Klein, professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University, refers to the concept as a good, medium-priced sit-down restaurant, “the kind of place you could go with your grandmother or take a date to.” This business was successful but modest compared to the family’s next towering venture.

Throughout the 1950’s, Stouffer’s opened a unique chain of restaurants where each location occupied the top floor of a skyscraper. This was inspired as the edifices captured public attention and astounded visitors.

The 38th floor of Erieview Tower housed one of Cleveland’s most prized restaurants, Stouffer’s Top of the Town.

The first location debuted in 1955. It was called Top of the Rock given it sat atop Chicago’s Prudential Building. Michigan’s Top of the Flame took over the twenty-sixth floor of the Consolidated Gas Building while Top of the Hub in Boston astounded customers by revolving. Not only did these perch on high, but each restaurant was also unique, “From a paddlewheel theme in Milwaukee to Mediterranean garden vibes in Atlanta, the distinctive decor of each Top of iteration was just like the menu: pleasing and straightforward.”

The crown jewel was the aptly named Top of the Sixes at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York, “When 666 opened in November 1957, a few weeks after Sputnik circled the earth, the building’s ribbon-cutting was accomplished with a 12-inch rocket with a flare attached, and it severed the ribbon to unfurl a 125-foot-wide American flag down the façade.”

This scene from The Wolf of Wall Street was meant to take place in Top of the Sixes.

Top of the Sixes sold ten million dinners over twenty-five years but apparently the view, not the food, was the draw at Top of the Sixes. A New York Post critic wrote, “Beef stroganoff was a Swiss steak on noodles reminiscent of a hundred airline meals.” Top of the Sixes closed in the nineties but was brought back to life in the 2013 film, The Wolf of Wall Street.

For decades, you could count on the brand to offer upscale frozen dishes.

The busy Stouffer family got busier by selling TV dinners. This was not a difficult decision as restaurant customers were ordering extra dinners to freeze at home. The company froze menu items and sold them in an adjacent space. Soon company was competing with Swansons and Banquet.

Stouffer’s Dinner Supreme was introduced in the eighties, and targeted yuppies. Stouffers attracted these well-compensated, near narcissists with flounder in dill cream sauce with pineapple sesame rice and mixed vegetables. Braised beef with burgundy wine came with scalloped potatoes and florets of broccoli.

At least the bowl is elegant.

Stouffer’s eventually retreated from the upscale market choosing to supply the masses with frozen comfort foods. There was more demand for meatloaf, Salisbury steak, and fried chicken and the margins more attractive. This was a return to familiar terrain for a company with a 100-year history of serving blue plate specials.

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