Something Like Mom's

Fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school in 1923, young Vernon Stouffer decided to invest his talents in a highly unlikely place--his mother's kitchen. Her Dutch apple pies had made the family's snack bar the most popular one in Cleveland. "The possibility of a chain of restaurants serving food with fresh homelike flavor appealed to me," remembers Stouffer (rhymes with show fur).

The idea has so appealed to U.S. diners that Vernon Stouffer now rules an efficient chain of 37 restaurants in eleven states that along with a fast-expanding frozen-food business rang up sales of $51 million and a $1,500,000 profit last year.

The Fail-Safe System. Stouffer's recipe for success is to concentrate on plain dishes prepared the way Mom used to make them, and to have only women do the cooking. Five-foot five-inch Vernon Stouffer, 61, who is married and the father of three, is convinced that "women know food better than men. They like to fuss with foods--they care more." Stouffer's food is unlikely to send a gourmet into raptures, or to show much evidence of fuss, but it is inevitably eatable, usually tasty, always well-served, and priced moderately. The economy luncheon special averages a dollar.

A "fail-safe" system ensures that each restaurant abides by Stouffer standards. The research kitchen at the Cleveland headquarters has standardized 4,500 Stouffer recipes, prescribes the menus for every link in the chain. Vern Stouffer studies the menus, often steps into the kitchen to test-taste, sends his secretary such memos as "Haven't seen baked bananas lately." As chairman, chief stockholder, and tastemaker, Stouffer is on the road at least one-third of the time to keep up the standards. He likes to drop into his restaurants unannounced, order a meal as if he were just another customer, then quiz managers on such details as the amount of chicken broth that goes into Stouffer's official vichyssoise. Says Stouffer: "You can't delegate quality control."

Tops on Fifth. Though Howard Johnson's has a thicker cut of the national restaurant business, Stouffer's boasts some superlatives of its own. In Manhattan, Stouffer's Fifth Avenue, which includes the skyscraping Top of the Six's, is the nation's largest restaurant operation, grossing $5,000,000 annually. At the Equitable Life Assurance headquarters, Stouffer's serves 6,000 lunches daily, a record for employee feeding. It also runs restaurants at the new Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center, and at Disneyland.

Vern Stouffer expects that premium-priced frozen foods, which now account for 40% of the company's gross, eventually will bring in more than 50% of it. But he says: "The restaurants will always remain the hallmark of our quality." He personally intends to see that they do. And he has his own special means for keeping his waistline in fighting trim for all those calorie-loaded inspection trips: when not on the road or entertaining guests, he usually lunches at his desk on buttermilk and crackers.

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