In all the years I have been researching and writing about Fred Harvey and the Southwest, the question I am asked the most is: how do you get reservations at El Tovar, the historic Harvey hotel at the lip of the Grand Canyon? It is a question people have been asking for well over a century. I explain this, along how to tour the entire Fred Harvey route from Chicago to LA, in the appendix to Appetite for America. But here’s a more in-depth insiders guide to getting a room at what is arguably America’s most in-demand hotel.

El Tovar is run by Xanterra, the company that bought out Fred Harvey, under contract with the National Park Service. The same is true for the four other South Rim hotels, Bright Angel Lodge (designed by Mary Colter in the 1930s), Thunderbird Lodge and Kachina Lodge right on the rim, Maswik Lodge and Yavapai Lodge, a short walk away, and Phantom Ranch, the rugged lodge at the bottom of the Canyon.)

While there are many other places to stay near the South Rim, these four are the only ones that allow you to actually sleep (and, more important, wake up) at the South Rim. But if you can get reservation and you can afford it, El Tovar is premier place to stay at the Grand Canyon. And its restaurant is, by far, the best place to eat there.

The problem, of course, is that millions of people come to the Grand Canyon from all over the world every year. And they all want to stay and eat there. So, over the years, they’ve developed a rather arcane system of doling out the South Rim hotel reservations.

On the first day of every month, at exactly 11:00 AM Mountain Time, Xanterra opens for reservation every room on the South Rim–for a one-month period exactly 13 months in the future. So there are people who begin feverishly calling the Xanterra reservation number–888-297-2757 (toll free in US), 303-297-2757 (outside the U.S.)–at that precise moment until they get through to an operator. Some call on cell phones and landlines simultaneously–families have been known to do this together from multiple locations–because it is a first-come-first-served feeding frenzy and it can only be done by phone. (It’s like buying Springsteen tickets from Ticketmaster before the internet was invented.)

If you don’t get through in the first 15 or 20 minutes, or even the first hour or two, don’t be discouraged–the most in-demand rooms, because there are so few of them, are actually the rooms that campers dream of at Phantom Ranch (since, everyone else visiting the canyon floor sleeps on the ground.) It is still possible to reserve prime rooms at El Tovar–even one of the four amazing suites–an hour or even longer after the rooms are released.

Before you make the call, you should decide just how negotiable your travel plans are–it’s not uncommon for people to plan entire western trips around the best days when the best rooms are available at El Tovar. Weekends and holidays are most in-demand. Standard rooms–which run $174-$205–will probably be easily available for any day the entire 24 hours after the rooms are opened for reservations. Deluxe rooms, at $268, go more quickly. And the four balcony suites–three of which have full canyon views–go the quickest, in part because they are surprisingly reasonable at $321-$426. (The Fred Harvey Suite, the Mary Colter Suite and the El Tovar Suite overlook the canyon; the Charles Whittlesey Suite has a partial canyon view, but also overlooks the park’s forest and has a huge balcony.) If you can afford it and your travel plans have some wiggle room, I’d suggest that when you get through that operator, you start the conversation by asking which suites are available which days, and work backward from there.

However–and this is a big however–while it sounds like if you haven’t planned 13 months in advance you can’t stay at the canyon, that actually isn’t true. Because people make these reservations so far out, they also tend to cancel some of them–some long in advance, some at the last minute. So it is ALWAYS worth checking the moment you think you want to go the canyon, to see what is available. And if you end up not being able to get a reservation on the South Rim itself, it is worth checking again right before you go–and even the day you are arriving–to see if there are cancellations, because there often are.

If you want to eat dinner at El Tovar, you also have to make reservations far in advance–they take them up to six months before you arrive, if you’re going to be staying at El Tovar, and up to 30 days in advance if you aren’t. Call 928.638.2631, ext. 6432 or e-mail to eltovar-dinner-res-gcsr@xanterra.com. Breakfast and lunch don’t require reservations, but dinner does, especially on weekends and holidays.

And, of course, while you’re there, if you’re looking for a good book to read, you’ll find copies of Appetite for America in all the Grand Canyon stores and gift shops.

We’re still finalizing details, but I’ve been invited to lecture and be part of two days of Fred Harvey/Harvey Girl/ATSF events over Labor Day Weekend–which, in Sacramento, is also “Gold Rush Days”–at the California State Railroad Museum. I’ll pass on more information as I get it, but there will be events on Saturday and Sunday, September 4 and 5. One of the highlights of their collection is this 1937 ATSF Fred Harvey dining car from the Super Chief, the Cochiti!

While some details are still being finalized, just wanted to let everyone interested in Fred Harvey and Appetite for America know that the book tour will continue in the Southwest starting August 27th at Grand Canyon and ending with a very special event at the Montezuma Castle in Las Vegas, NM–which is almost never open to the public, but will be on September 3 for a rare tour in the afternoon, and a lecture, slide presentation and book signing starting at 7 pm!

The dates as we know them so far:
August 27: 9 am book signing at Grand Canyon Railway Depot in Williams, AZ, afternoon book signing at El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon
August 28: afternoon book signing at El Tovar Hotel at Grand Canyon, evening Fred Harvey lecture open to the public (time TBA)
August 29: Lecture/signing at 2:30 at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff; lecture/signing/dinner beginning at 6:30 at La Posada in Winslow, AZ
August 30: Lecture/signing at Belen Harvey House museum, Belen, NM (time TBA)
September 2: Lecture/signing/wine reception at La Fonda Hotel starting at 7:00 pm in the La Terraza, co-sponsored by Collected Works book shop
September 3: Lecture/signing at Montezuma Castle, Las Vegas, NM, at 7:00, afternoon tour of the Castle (time TBD) co-sponsored by United World College, Citizens Committee for Historic Preservation and Tome on the Range bookstore

Check out this op-ed in the San Angelo Standard-Times. Columnist Bruce McLaren, inspired after reading Appetite for America, uses Fred as a way into a discussion of how mass transit and the culture it brings can change the destiny of areas—like West Texas. Here’s the lede:

SAN ANGELO, Texas — I have just finished reading a most interesting biography about Fred Harvey, entitled “Appetite for America.” A visionary businessman, he built a railroad hospitality empire that civilized the Wild West. He was a pioneer in transit-oriented development.

There were Harvey houses at railroad depots in many of the cities of the western United States, some as close to us as Sweetwater, Slaton and Brownwood. This book is well worth your time to read.

That is part of what prompted me to write this. The other is: Do you ever dream while sleeping? When you wake up can you still recall the dream in some detail?

Not long ago, I woke from what I thought was a sound night’s sleep, yet vividly recalling the following scenario: I needed to get to Dallas, but our airport was closed. Flights could not land or leave. I drove over to the new transportation center at Chadbourne and Houston Harte hoping to catch a bus to Dallas.

Arriving, I noticed a brightly painted commuter train from Presidio that was preparing to depart for Brownwood, Stephenville, Granbury and Fort Worth, and arrive in Dallas in three and a half hours. Purchasing a ticket, I boarded a comfortably appointed passenger car.

Unfortunately, as my “dream train” pulled out of San Angelo, my alarm clock went off and I never got to enjoy the trip.

Many of us dream of trains, Bruce…

photo courtesy of Gordon Chappell collection, Denver Public Library

Just received a wonderful gift from Natalie Harvey Bontumasi that I thought Fredheads might appreciate. It’s a Lego toy flashlight, the significance of which is known only to the 200-or-so people who got stuck with us in the underground auditorium at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe when the power went out city-wide.

When it was clear I was going to have to give my reading and lecture on Appetite for America in the dark, I asked if anyone in the audience had a flashlight. The Harvey family–many of whom had joined us on the train from KC to New Mexico–were all sitting in the front rows, and three of the resourceful Harvey women produced light sources from their pocketbooks. Natalie, who has young kids, had a Lego light that shot beams out of its feet–which I loved and had a hard time giving back after the talk (which went on for 45 minutes in the dark before the power was restored just in time for a Fred Harvey dinner at La Fonda.)

Natalie was recently at a Lego convention and said she couldn’t resist buying me one of my own. Very kind, and just one more instance of the Harvey hospitality my wife and I have been shown in all the years of working with the family on this book.

Happy Independence Day Weekend! I pulled out some recipes from my Fred Harvey culinary archive that are perfect for the holiday. Several appear in the recipe appendix for Appetite for America, but the ones marked with * are “new” and never-before-published.

May Fred be with you on Independence Day! And don’t forget to check out the new Fred Harvey Cookbook Project!

OLD VIRGINIA SOUR MILK BISCUITS
Stir into two cupfuls of loppered milk or buttermilk, a day old, one rounded teaspoonful of soda (no more). Whip into this with a few swift strokes one tablespoonful of melted (not hot) butter. Have ready in your mixing bowl one quart of flour twice sifted. Measure after sifting. Make a hole in the middle of this and pour in gradually but quickly the frothing milk, stirring the flour down into it with a wooden spoon. The dough should be very soft. Mix, roll, cut out very rapidly with as little handling as possible, and bake in a quick oven.

FRIED CHICKEN CASTAÑEDA
Fry an onion, chopped very fine, in butter, add flour, mix and pour in one quart chicken broth and one- half pint cream. Stir and let come to a boil. Let it cook about ten minutes. Add two egg yolks and parsley, and remove from the fire. This sauce must be quite thick. Dip thin slices of one three- pound hen in the sauce so that it adheres to both sides. Lay them in a pan sprinkled with bread crumbs and also sprinkle the chicken with bread crumbs. When cold, dip them in beaten egg and crumbs and fry in deep hot grease. Serve with tomato sauce and French peas as garnish. If handled properly, one three- pound hen will make ten to twelve fair- sized orders.

HARVEY COLE SLAW
In a large bowl, combine one medium head cabbage, shredded, and one small onion, finely minced. Spread one- third cup granulated sugar over it, toss with fork. Next, bring to boil one teaspoon sugar, one and one- half teaspoon salt, one- half teaspoon dry mustard, one- half teaspoon celery seed, one- half cup salad oil, one- half cup apple cider vinegar. Pour over cabbage, toss thoroughly and refrigerate for at least four hours. Serves five to six, lasts beautifully.

GERMAN POTATO SALAD
Boil twelve potatoes. While hot, cut into thin slices, cover with finely sliced onions and add one teaspoon of salt and one- half teaspoon of pepper. Mix the yolk of one egg with three tablespoons of olive oil and four tablespoons of vinegar. Pour the well- mixed dressing over the potatoes, then pour a half- cup of boiling water or broth over the whole mixture and stir well. Sprinkle with chopped parsley; cover and let stand a few hours. This salad will never be dry.

*NEW PEAS WITH LETTUCE
Simmer in butter one head shredded lettuce. Add one pound shelled new peas, season with salt and pinch of sugar. Cover with chicken stock and cook until peas are nice and tender. Serve in vegetable dish and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

*HOME MADE BLUEBERRY CAKE CHANTILLY
Make a sponge cake with one-half pound flour and two ounces yeast dissolved in one gill (gill=1/2 cup) of lukewarm milk. Cover with cloth, let prove and when double its size mix with five eggs, five ounces sugar, five ounces melted butter, a little salt, one teaspoon grated lemon rind, and one and one-half pounds flour. Make a medium stiff dough, beating well and let raise again. Cover with cloth and place in ice box until ready to use. Roll out above dough to one-third-inch thickness. Cover bottom of buttered cake pan and fill with four quarts blueberries mixed with one and one-half ounces cornstarch and one and one-half pounds sugar. Bake in medium oven for about thirty minutes and cover with oiled paper. Cut in suitable pieces and serve with whipped cream.

*PRUNE LOAF WITH WHIPPED CREAM
Cream one pound butter, one pound sugar, add eight eggs one at a time. Mix one pound sifted flour with one pound cooked and pitted prunes, and combine other ingredients. Place in a buttered pan, and bake in moderate oven for about one hour. Let cool, cut in nice slices and serve with whipped cream.

All recipes from Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West–One Meal at a Time (Bantam, now available in paperback and ebook) except *, which are from the author’s own cache of unpublished Fred Harvey recipes. For more information, www.stephenfried.com or the One Nation Under Fred blog at www.fredharveybook.com/blog.

Terrific interview on KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, about the book.

The Kitchen Conservancy in St. Louis is doing a food book club event for their Novel Cuisine program on Appetite for America, August 22. You discuss the book and then eat dishes from it. Sounds delicious!

Here’s the info
Novel Cuisine: Appetite For America-class
Kitchen Conservatory
Sun 22nd Aug 2010
01:00:00 PM- 03:30:00 PM
Anne Cori
Kitchen Conservatory Staff

NOVEL CUISINE: APPETITE FOR AMERICA
NOVEL CUISINE – A BOOK CLUB FOR FOOD LOVERS! Fully experience some delicious books on food and cooking by reading them first and then enjoying food from the books. Join us in a fun afternoon; the class gets to be both book and food critic at once. All books in this monthly series are available at Kitchen Conservatory.
Learn how visionary businessman and food missionary Fred Harvey built a restaurant empire starting in 1880 in this social history, Appetite for America, written by Stephen Fried. Dine on these Harvey recipes: cream of cheese soup, crab and shrimp in ramekins, St. Louis cauliflower, stuffed bell peppers, and French apple pie with nutmeg sauce. Demonstration

$40.00 Per Person
Cancellation Policy:
Classes are filled on first-come basis.
Payment must be made at the time of registration.
Register online, in person at our store, or mail list of classes you want with your name and your telephone number.
Also register by phone: (314)-862-COOK (2665).
Send payment to KITCHEN CONSERVATORY, 8021 Clayton Road, St. Louis, MO 63117. http://www.kitchenconservatory.com/

Here’s Fred himself in St. Louis, in the early 1860s, looking like he could use a good meal.

This terrific history site, Wonders & Marvels, asked me to do a piece about Fred and the writing of the book. check it out.

Here’s a generally very favorable review of Appetite for America written by a Professor David Meyers from the University of New Mexico Law Library. At the end, however, he raises a troubling issue which I’d be curious to hear Harvey fans and experts discuss. he basically criticizes the book for not calling more attention to what he feels is racism on the part of Fred Harvey and his company. His examples are the way that the company replaced black servers with white Harvey Girls but he also claims the Harvey restaurants all had segregated seating–which, to the best of my knowledge, they did not (although I did once see a blueprint for a Texas Harvey House that had a separate seating area, but the person who showed me the blueprints assured me this seating was never actually done).

The entire review is below. I’d be very curious to hear what you think.

Stephen Fried. Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West. New York: Bantam Books, 2010. Illustrations. xix + 518 pp. $27.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-553-80437-9.

Reviewed by David Myers (University of New Mexico Law Library)
Published on H-NewMexico (June, 2010)
Commissioned by Tomas Jaehn

How the West Was Civilized

The Fred Harvey Company represents a significant component of several aspects of American history. Through its founder and his heirs, the company was one of the very first restaurant and hotel chains in America. It was an enormously successful operation, which at its peak included sixty-five restaurants and lunchrooms, sixty dining car operations, and twelve hotels. Dedicated to providing the highest quality service, it was patronized by presidents, royalty, and corporate leaders. It was one of the first companies to hire a large number of women and in doing so, created the famous Harvey Girls. It also played a leading role in helping Americans understand and experience the glories of the American Southwest, especially the Grand Canyon.

Given these impressive accomplishments, it is surprising that no one has written about the business side of the Fred Harvey Company. Books of photographs, novels, and even a movie have explored the Harvey Girls, but the business operations of the company have been ignored until now. Stephen Fried’s Appetite for America provides a comprehensible and readable account that admirably fills that void. For Fried, a journalist, the research and writing were clearly a labor of love. The scope of his research is comprehensive and thorough. He became deeply involved in the story even to the point of providing recipes for the company’s most famous dishes.

The central purpose of this book is to present a comprehensive history of the strategies and operations that made the company so successful and to detail the three generations of family history as well. Both of these stories are presented in the context of the developing trans-Mississippi West and America’s rapidly developing business success. Fried is generally successful in these ambitious goals. Fred Harvey, an Englishman, immigrated to America and worked at a series of odd jobs until he settled with his family in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he began to sell advertising for newspapers and the railroads. He traveled constantly in his job and was appalled by the terrible and unsanitary condition of train stop restaurants and hotels. In 1876, he decided to start his own company that would provide a high quality, immaculate alternative. So, while maintaining his current jobs, he launched the Fred Harvey Company. The first lunchroom located at Topeka, Kansas, so impressed the leaders of the new, growing railroad, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (AT&SF), that Harvey signed what would be a series of long-term contracts to build restaurants and hotels along the line that would eventually stretch from Chicago to California.

Harvey’s ambitions succeeded famously. The dedication to quality service and excellent food attracted huge numbers of customers. One early major problem resulted from his use of African American waiters, which frequently led to dangerous situations for the servers. Based on a suggestion from one of his managers, the company switched to young, unmarried women–the famous Harvey Girls–who were highly trained and carefully controlled. As the company grew and his health declined, Fred gradually let his son Ford take over company operations. Ford proved to be an even better manager than his father and greatly expanded the company and its success. Ford’s particular interest was the American Southwest centered on the Grand Canyon home of the company’s El Tovar Hotel. In addition to establishing such magnificent hotels as the Alvarado in Albuquerque and La Fonda in Santa Fe, Ford helped to foster a greater awareness of this region; its native artists; and their arts, artifacts, and antiquities.

By the first decade of the twentieth century, the company was at its peak. Ford’s son Freddy, a pilot during World War I, took over management in 1928 after his father’s sudden death. Freddy continued the operations in much the same manner. More flamboyant than his father, however, he added an airline component to the company but it struggled and was ended after Freddy died in an airplane crash in 1936. With his death, control of the company passed to Ford’s brother, Byron, who ran the dining car operations in Chicago. By this time, the combination of the Great Depression, the rise of the automobile and the airplane, and the beginning of a major decline in railroad travel began a steady erosion of company profits. The company would continue for several more years, but the end was inevitable.

Fried has accomplished an important addition to the history of business in America. It reads quickly and provides abundant detail. A set of problems, however, limit the book’s effectiveness. The clearly racist attitudes of the company are not developed. Rather than deal with the African American staff problem, they were simply dismissed during the conversion to women. Harvey dining facilities always maintained separate eating facilities for African Americans. Despite its large numbers of establishments in the Southwest, women of color were not hired as Harvey Girls until very late in the company’s history. Similarly, the workplace experience of the staff is glossed over. They had to work demanding split shifts and work at an even more demanding pace when trains arrived. He also limits the effectiveness of the book by providing far too much detail on the personal lives of family members. The second half of the book loses track of the main story as we learn about personal buying habits of individuals and their social activities. A very good book would have been much better with about one hundred fewer pages.

For those who don’t have an hour to invest in hearing me talk about Fred, the ten minute trailer.

Interesting review in Decatur, Alabama daily paper about Fred’s relevance to today’s business leaders (and his inspiration to a new generation of entrepreneurs).

THE DECATUR DAILY 6/20/2010
(Decatur, AL)

THE BIRTH OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
By John Davis
Special to The Daily

If you have visited the Grand Canyon, you’ve seen one of the Fred Harvey legacies: the magnificent El Tovar Hotel. Harvey, the man who virtually invented the idea of chain business enterprises, was a true American success story — so much so that he is still with us in spirit.

Only occasionally do we in America commemorate longevity. We are the nation of the new, improved and exciting. This is hardly a recipe for endurance. This is particularly true in the business world. Yet, in this remarkable study of the life of Harvey, founder of the first chain business in America, we have the bellwether of today’s American business scene.

This book is the work of Stephen Fried, adjunct professor at Columbia University’s famed journalism school, investigative reporter for many top-flight magazines, not to mention being an award-winning author. Fried weaves a tale all the more valuable for its readability, its insightful research, as well as its remarkably broad historical brush.

We see Harvey not as a lone phenomenon, but as a man of his times, when business boomed after the American Civil War, and the spirit of the conquest of the newly opened American West drew forth men of adventure, risk and drive.

Painful travel
When Harvey arrived in this country from England in the mid-1800s, he encountered a transportation and travel nightmare on the American road system. It was always easier to travel by boat, because travel by land at that time was a painful, torturous journey. Not only were the roads of dubious quality and conveyances worse, but the food along the way was chancy and horrific at best.

Operating under the theory “We won’t see him again” in reference to the traveler, tavern keepers, hoteliers and restaurateurs were little motivated to operate quality stores. Food was of questionable quality, customer service unknown and business ethics a true question mark.
Harvey took advantage of the travesty of travel with the advent of the railroad. The great cross-country tracks, which followed the old Santa Fe Trail, were his first business models.

He began a series of restaurants that would be staffed by trained waitresses, who came to be known as Harvey Girls. Further, he introduced the idea of standardization of quality, caring customer service, timeliness and repeatable, good restaurant experiences. This was to revolutionize America.

What Harvey did then was introduce the value of the chain business. Fried shows how Harvey’s many contacts across the nation with well known travelers took advantage of even Teddy Roosevelt, whose Rough Riders held their reunion in one of the Harvey Hotels. Fried shows that because this was a maintainable business model, Fred Harvey’s vision allowed it to continue after his death. Fried reveals the roles of Harvey’s relatives, among whom Ford, Minnie and Freddy played great parts in the inherited chain.

It became clear that, despite the great distances involved in traveling in the American West, such a concept would work.

He was successful because he showed that a proper treatment of the customer was key to repeat business, and the fact that he offered his services in more than one place allowed the traveler to choose his company over and over. They planned ahead to take advantage of a Harvey hotel because they knew it would be clean, satisfying and operationally reliable.

This is a delightful, historically insightful book that reads well and with verve. I’d recommend this type study to anyone who wants to see why our country’s imaginative entrepreneurs have become watchwords for most businesses today.

You can now see pictures on the Facebook page of Harrisburg Area Community College Hospitality & Tourism Dept. of the amazing Fred Harvey dishes prepared by students from the Olewine Culinary School under the supervision of Chef Autumn Miles Patti.

Here are my favorites–and if your culinary school would like to try this fun and educational program (most of these students had never heard of Fred Harvey before, and now they understand his role in the development of their field), contact Chef Autumn at armiles@hacc.edu

Check out USA Today’s 10 Great Places to follow Fred Harvey’s Old West Tracks! There’s also a nice photo gallery

One of the nation’s top hospitality school professors, Dr. Joseph “Mick” La Lopa (below) at Purdue, proclaims on his industry blog Foodservice Educators Learning Community:

“Appetite for America is a Must Read … one of the best biographies of a true hospitality industry pioneer … I was really impressed … many of the things that you are probably teaching your students today on how to acquire, prepare, and serve food — let alone manage a hospitality business — [are] most likely traced back to Fred Harvey. And for those who are accredited by ACPHA and need to be up on industry pioneers as part of that accreditation it is imperative to know and tell the story of Fred Harvey. At the very least, this book should be on the shelves of every library for culinary arts and hospitality education students to read.”