Page 109 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

pay for a lunch. Those who didn’t want to leave their shop or office, often
asked someone to bring back a hamburger. Office and errand boys from the
offices in the building take back as many as fifteen or twenty hamburgers for
the girls and men in their office at one time. I could have sold coffee at our
first location, but that would have meant a delay in service. People who want
coffee generally want to sit down at a table and I didn’t have room for tables
there. Those who bought the hamburgers didn’t seem to mind not having
coffee. So I saved the rental on larger space and the cost of fixtures, and did
just as big a business as if I had them. In the second shop, however, we sold
coffee, because it seemed to be a custom for working men to send out a boy
for enough coffee for eight or ten at one time. Our profits in this building
were almost as large as in the first place. When I decided to open the third
location, I chose a spot in another industrial building. Here rent was cheap,
and there was a large and highly concentrated market for coffee and
hamburgers.”

Henry pointed out that he did not consider locations outside of the business or
industrial districts as suitable for hamburger stands. His success, he declares,
was due to offering a convenience to working people with limited time. If he
can get 30 per cent of the workers in a building, he is able to keep one stand
going in great shape, and have the evening for himself.

His first equipment was one second-hand griddle, thirty by eighteen inches,
for frying the hamburgers, a large tin box for his supply of “giant” rolls, and a
large bottle of relish. A trick in making hamburgers especially delicious is to
mix the meat with crumbled stale bread. No ice is required since the
hamburgers come ready for the griddle on two daily deliveries from the local
packing house warehouses. A stand of this kind may be opened with very
little capital in any small space on the lower floors (not necessarily the lobby
or street floor) of an industrial or office building. Potato chips bagged, small
pies, and similar specialties might profitably be carried as side lines.

Etched Bottles and Boxes Sell Easily

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