Owned by Nestlé, Stouffer’s offers frozen classic American comfort dishes such as meatloaf, lasagna, chicken parmesan, spaghetti with meatballs, and macaroni and cheese. But Stouffer’s history is bigger than frozen food: The company started as a dairy stand, became a popular chain of restaurants, and even opened hotels. Here are 10 things you might not know about Stouffer’s.
1. IT STARTED AS A CREAMERY AND DAIRY STAND IN 1914 …
In 1914, Abraham Stouffer and his father, James, opened the Medina County Creamery in Medina, Ohio. The same year, they also opened a dairy stand at Sheriff Street Market in Cleveland to sell their buttermilk and cheese products. Two years later, Abraham and his wife, Lena, moved to Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to manage the creamery.
2. … AND TURNED INTO A COFFEE SHOP AND RESTAURANT IN OHIO.
In 1922, Abraham and Lena turned their dairy stand into a mini coffee shop, selling coffee, cheese sandwiches, and Lena’s Dutch apple pies. In 1924, they opened a full-fledged restaurant, called Stouffer Lunch, on East 9th Street in Cleveland. Stouffer Lunch served five sandwiches for about a quarter each.
3. STOUFFER’S SONS HELPED OPEN MORE RESTAURANTS OUTSIDE OHIO.
Vernon Stouffer, a recent graduate of Wharton, had helped his parents open Stouffer Lunch’s first location. Along with his brother, Gordon Stouffer, who joined the family business in 1929, he helped his parents expand their restaurant business. They went public that year as The Stouffer Corporation and by 1937, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and New York City got their own Stouffer’s restaurants.
4. IT GOT INTO FROZEN FOOD TO SATISFY CUSTOMERS’ DESIRE FOR TAKE OUT.
In 1946, Stouffer’s got into the frozen food business after customers at one of Stouffer’s Cleveland restaurants asked the restaurant manager to freeze the dishes so they could take them home and reheat them later. The frozen take-out component of the restaurant’s business became so popular that customers could bypass the restaurant and go next door to buy frozen Stouffer’s entrees at their 227 Club.
5. STOUFFER’S ONCE OWNED A PENTHOUSE RESTAURANT IN NEW YORK CITY.
Stouffer’s restaurants expanded from locations in Cleveland and the midwest to the east coast, and the chain also opened restaurants at the top of tall buildings and towers in Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York. In the penthouse of 666 5th Avenue in New York—just a block north of St. Patrick’s Cathedral—Stouffer’s opened a restaurant in 1958 called Top of the Sixes. People reportedly went to the restaurant more for the view than the food (one restaurant reviewer in the ’70s wrote “My ‘beef stroganoff’ was a Swiss steak on noodles reminiscent of a hundred airline meals”), and Stouffer’s eventually sold the restaurant in 1992.
6. STOUFFER’S BECAME A SUCCESSFUL HOTEL CHAIN.
Stouffer’s branched out into the hotel business in 1960. After buying the Anacapri Inn in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Stouffer’s opened hotels everywhere from Nashville to St. Louis, Indianapolis to Houston, Chicago to Los Angeles. The company was acquired in the late 1960s and again in the early 1970s, and Nestlé sold Stouffer Hospitality Group (the hotels and restaurants division of the company) to a hotel conglomerate in the mid-’90s.
7. STOUFFER’S ALSO HAS A CONNECTION TO PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL.
In 1966, Vernon Stouffer bought the Cleveland Indians. Although the baseball team had won the World Series in 1920 and 1948, the team didn’t win much or attract big crowds in the 1960s. Stouffer considered moving the team from Cleveland to New Orleans, but his plans didn’t pan out. In 1972, he sold the team to a Cleveland sports businessman, Nick Mileti, who already owned two Cleveland teams, including the Cavaliers.
8. ASTRONAUTS LOVE STOUFFER’S.
Stouffer’s isn’t exactly space food, but NASA fed Stouffer’s to astronauts who had just arrived back on Earth and were in a mandatory quarantine. Astronauts on Apollo 11, 12, 13, and 14 ate Stouffer’s foods during their quarantines (which lasted for at least 2 weeks), and Stouffer’s proudly touted the endorsement in their advertisements.
9. LEAN CUISINE IS A LOWER CALORIE VERSION OF STOUFFER’S.
Eventually, Stouffer’s wanted to reach customers who were concerned with the amount of calories in their frozen entrees. In 1981, the company started selling Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine, a line of lower calorie and lower fat versions of Stouffer’s frozen entrees. Lean Cuisine was an immediate hit, and the frozen food line continues to offer a variety of cuisines—Mexican, Italian, Asian, Mediterranean, and American—to calorie-conscious consumers.
10. APPLEBEE’S SUED STOUFFER’S OVER SKILLET SENSATIONS.
In 1996, the casual-dining restaurant chain Applebee’s introduced a line of dishes called Skillet Sensations, a name Stouffer’s began using the following year for a line of their own frozen entrees. Stouffer’s applied to trademark the term in 1997, which Applebee’s opposed, and in 2003, Applebee’s officially sued Nestlé over their continued use of the name. The two companies settled the lawsuit, and Nestlé renamed their products as Stouffer’s Skillets by 2005.
There’s no food fight quite like one that exists between two states fighting for ownership of an origin story. Take Pennsylvania and Maine, for example. For nearly 100 years, these northeast locales have been duking it out for whoopie pie supremacy. You read that right, whoopie pie.
The palm-sized, chocolate sandwich-like goodie anchored together by creamy vanilla filling has been at the heart of a multi-state tug-of-war with no end in sight. So which state owns bragging rights?
The earliest claim appears to belong to Maine. In 1925, Labadie’s Bakery opened its doors on Lincoln Street in Lewiston, then a small mill town nestled near the Androscoggin River. Soon after, they claim to have sold the first Maine whoopie. But, alas, there’s no documented proof. All of the bakery’s early files were destroyed in a fire. Evidence or not, Mainers insist the whoopie pie’s birthplace is the Pine Tree State. Dozens, if not hundreds, of bakeries throughout the state make and sell whoopie pies—as many as 100,000 per year, according to Robert S. Cox in his book New England Pie: History Under a Crust. It seems Maine has a solid foundation to back up their claim.
Folks in the Keystone State, however, beg to differ. They contend the creamy confections were first created in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, with recipes handed down through the generations. According to Pennsylvanians, Amish cooks made the first whoopies using leftover cake batter. Legend has it that children (and happy husbands) shouted “whoopee!” as they discovered these delicious treats in their lunch buckets. Mainers dispute that name claim as well: They’ll tell you the catchy name was derived from Gus Kahn’s popular ’20s show tune “Makin’ Whoopee.” “It’s a jazzy product name,” Sandy Oliver, a Maine-based food historian, told Philly.com in 2011.
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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “whoopee” was coined in the 1860s as an interjection to express joy. By the time the Roaring Twenties rolled around, the term had acquired slightly risqué undertones with the period’s flaming youth. So either state could be on to something. It’s just another mystery in the whoop-de-do over the whoopie pie.
What’s not a mystery is how far some people will go to stake their claim to this wondrous confection. Maine’s now-senator Paul Davis stirred things up in January 2011 when he introduced a bill to make the whoopie pie Maine’s official state dessert. The proposal, L.D. 71; H.P. 59, received bipartisan support despite opposing views (some felt blueberry pie deserved the recognition). Others were hesitant to support such a “weighty” bill. “Do we really want to glorify a dessert that lists lard as its primary ingredient?” Don Pilon, a Representative from Saco, asked during testimony. The designation was later changed to official state treat with blueberry pie being honored as the official state dessert.
Before it passed, word of the proposed bill made its way to Pennsylvania, and residents were not happy. “We do the original,” baker Nancy Rexroad told the Associated Press. “When something’s the original, you can’t improve on it.” The Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau immediately launched an online petition that read “Save Our Whoopie,” calling the Maine bill a “confectionary larceny.” Ouch. The effort included a tongue-in-cheek video that lampooned the “misguided moose-lovers.”
If that wasn’t enough, Josh Graupera of Lancaster was so outraged after hearing about Maine’s pending legislation that he and a friend organized a protest in downtown Lancaster in February 2011. More than 100 Pennsylvanians rallied, holding up signs with messages for their rivals up north: “100% PA Dutch”; “Mainers, You Go Eat Lobster”; “Give Me Whoopie, or Give Me Death”; and “Whoopie Pies from Maine Taste Like Moose Poop!” Double ouch.
“Generations and generations have been making and eating whoopie pies here in Lancaster,” one protester said. “My grandmother did in the ’30s and ’40s and her mother did before her.”
So why not put an end to this little quarrel like responsible, reasonable adults? Why not have a whoopie pie bake off and settle the debate once and for all? Well, because there’s a curve ball—called Massachusetts. It seems Bay Staters also want a piece of the pie.
When writing her book, Making Whoopies: The Official Whoopie Pie Book, author Nancy Griffin made a surprising discovery—one that took her away from claims that either Maine or Pennsylvania was the first state to make a whoopie. In her research, she uncovered a 1931 ad featuring a five-cent “Berwick whoopee pie” made at Boston’s now-defunct Berwick Cake Co. The faded declaration “Whoopee Pies” is still visible on the old brick Berwick building, and some believe that Berwick invented the whoopie pie to compete with Brooklyn’s Devil Dogs, which were introduced in the 1920s (while possibly taking inspiration from the Pittsburgh-area treat gob, which dates to around the same time).
But that’s not the only story out of the Bay State. The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink gives Durkee-Mower of Lynn, Massachusetts, the makers of marshmallow crème, credit for New England’s love affair with the whoopie pie. During the 1930s, Durkee hosted a variety show called the Flufferettes on the Yankee Radio Network. The last episode mentioned Durkee’s Yummy Book, a collection of dessert recipes including one for, supposedly, whoopie pies. But, there’s a problem: In 2009, The New York Times asked Don Durkee about the story, and after checking Durkee-Mower’s archives, he came up empty-handed. The best he found was that the company’s first mention of whoopie pies was from the 1970s. “I’m baffled,” he told the Times.
A few years before the whoopie pie became Maine’s official treat, the Maine Whoopie Pie Festival was established by the Center Theatre in the small rural town of Dover-Foxcroft. The annual event is held on the fourth Saturday in June, which also happens to be the state’s official Whoopie Pie Day. Though that date has passed, you can still catch Pennsylvania’s annual Whoopie Pie Festival this weekend, on September 10, at the Hershey Farm Restaurant & Inn in Lancaster County. The inn makes over 100 different flavors for the event.
With so many hands in the whoopie jar, we may never know whether the whoopie pie originated in New England or is the treasured, traditional treat of Pennsylvania. But as long as they’re readily available in each location, that seems like cause for … shouting whoopee!
In the summer of 1994, Nickelodeon handed three novice producers a monumental task: Create a hit television show for preschoolers, and do it on a shoestring budget. After 30 days holed up in a tiny conference room high above Times Square, the three came up a puzzle-based show starring a little blue dog. Over the course of 11 years, Blue’s Clues not only became the hit Nickelodeon sought—it exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations. On the 20th anniversary of the show’s premiere episode, we look back at Blue, Steve, Joe, and the show that redefined children’s television.
1. THE SHOW WAS STEEPED IN RESEARCH.
Todd Kessler, Angela Santomero, and Traci Paige Johnson—the trio that developed Blue’s Clues—wanted the show to be entertaining as well as educational. Along with co-creator Santomero, who had a master’s degree in child developmental psychology from Columbia University, the team enlisted the help of educators and consultants to craft a format that reflected the latest research in early childhood development.
Instead of the varied, nonlinear format popularized by Sesame Street and geared toward short attention spans, the team developed a narrative format. To keep kids engaged, they enlisted their help by having host Steve Burns pose questions to the camera, then pause to hear their answers. Simple, recognizable objects and sounds became the clues that eased young viewers into each episode, while the puzzles grew more challenging without becoming frustrating. The show had its own research department, which was rare for a kids’ program. Its research-based approach became what the production team called the “special sauce” in its recipe for success.
2. REPETITION WAS KEY.
The Blue’s Clues team wanted to promote mastery in children—that feeling that they were experts on a given topic. More than memorization or rote learning, mastery boosts kids’ self-esteem and ensures they’ll internalize information, which in turn better prepares them for school. Enforcing mastery requires repetition. So the show’s script repeated key words and phrases over and over in varying contexts. In the episode “Blue’s Predictions,” for example, second host Joe says the word “predict” 15 times to help viewers become acquainted with the word. After finding that kids’ engagement with the show increased with repeat viewings, Nickelodeon decided to air the same episode every day for a week before moving on to a new one.
3. THE PRODUCERS FIELD TESTED EACH EPISODE THREE TIMES.
After each script was finished, the show’s research team would test it on a classroom full of preschoolers, noting how the children responded to the material. The team would move on to another group, and then another, using the kids’ reactions to further develop the episode as it went into the animation phase. All told, each episode took around nine to 10 months to produce.
4. THE ORIGINAL PRODUCTION TEAM PROVIDED SOME OF THE VOICES.
Because they were working with such a limited budget, the production team provided voices for the show themselves rather than hire talent. Nick Balaban, who composed the music, played the role of Mr. Salt, while his co-composer, Michael Rubin, provided the voice of The Sun. In determining who would play the part of Blue, the team went around the table to see who had the best bark. The winner was co-creator Traci Paige Johnson, who filled the role throughout the show’s run.
5. BLUE WAS ORIGINALLY A CAT.
Johnson, Santomero, and Kessler’s first choice for their show’s main character was an orange cat named Mr. Orange. They didn’t like that color, so they turned the cat blue and named him Mr. Blue. However, Nickelodeon already had an animated series in the pipeline that featured a cat, so the network asked the team to pick a different animal. “We thought, it couldn’t be a little puppy, could it?” said Johnson in a behind-the-scenes special celebrating the show’s 10th anniversary. The team made the switch.
6. MR. SALT ORIGINALLY SOUNDED LIKE TONY SOPRANO.
In the anniversary special, Balaban gave viewers a taste of the voice he initially gave Mr. Salt. “‘Ey Mrs. Pepper! Blue’s in the kitchen and looks like he could use a little help,” the composer bellowed, in an accent reminiscent of The Sopranos’s leading mobster. Balaban quickly shifted to a softer-sounding French accent after the production team deemed the accent too gruff.
In conceiving the show, the production team envisioned a female host interacting with Blue and the gang. When it came time to cast the show, though, they opened up auditions to both male and female actors. After looking at more than 1000 eager young aspirants, they found that Steve Burns, a 22-year-old whose only previous credits included an episode of Law & Order and a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, got the best response from test audiences. “There was something about this kid fresh out of Pennsylvania,” said Johnson in the anniversary special. “He knew just how to look into the camera and talk to the kids.”
8. STEVE BURNS DIDN’T LOOK THE PART.
As a young actor, Burns didn’t have his sights set on a kids’ show—quite the opposite, in fact. “I had moved to New York to become Serpico,” he said in a 2010 monologue at The Moth, a storytelling venue located in New York. As such, Burns sported a grungy ’90s look, complete with long hair, earrings, and facial stubble. Before he auditioned for Blue’s Clues, Johnson called up Burns’ agent and told him to clean up his appearance before he came in. He did, and immediately went from tough guy to kiddie favorite.
9. HIS GREEN POLO SHIRTS WERE UNCOMFORTABLE.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Burns joked that his signature green polos were “carefully handmade to be as uncomfortable as possible.” The shirts were a hit with kids, of course—perhaps too much so. After parents complained to the network that their children wouldn’t take off their green polo shirts—because Steve never did—producers decided to give replacement host Donovan Patton (a.k.a. Joe) a more varied wardrobe.
10. STEVE ONCE CRASHED A KID’S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
After being named one of People Magazine’s most eligible bachelors in 2000, Burns started getting a lot of date requests. One that particularly interested him came from a swimsuit model, who mailed him a picture with her phone number. Burns called and arranged dinner, and agreed to pick her up at her home in New Jersey. When he finally met her, he discovered a significant size difference between the two of them (Burns is 5’6”). Eager to impress, he saw a sign in front of her neighbor’s house for a Blue’s Clues themed birthday party. “I had the green polo and some toys in the back of my car,” he said during his appearance at The Moth. “And I thought, ‘This is the only game you’ve got right now.'” Bewildered parents watched as the television host burst onto the scene and entertained the delighted crowd. The party was a complete success. The rest of the date? Not so much.
11. THE PRODUCERS WERE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT LICENSING.
With more than 14 million young viewers tuning in every week, Blue’s Clues had massive earning potential in licensed toys, clothes, games, and other products. But Nickelodeon and the show’s creators didn’t just lend Blue’s image to any candy company or board game maker that came calling. Knowing that the show’s popularity came from its ability to educate and empower children, the team carefully reviewed every licensing opportunity. Many companies were turned away.
In reviewing a proposal from a clothing company, the Blue’s Clues team interviewed parents about their kids’ clothing needs. “We thought, what can we do to help children dress themselves?” Alice Wilder, director of research and development for the show, said in an interview. The result: a line of clothing with elastic waistbands and big buttons that color-matched with each buttonhole.
12. IT GOT SESAME STREET TO CHANGE ITS FORMAT.
When Blue’s Clues premiered in 1996, its main competition was Sesame Street, which had been on the air for nearly three decades. Within just a few years, Nickelodeon’s little blue dog had eclipsed Big Bird and company, prompting the PBS mainstay to change its long-standing format to include more interactive segments and other elements that appealed to preschoolers.
13. THE FLAMING LIPS INSPIRED BURNS TO LEAVE THE SHOW.
In 2001, at the height of Blue’s Clues‘s popularity, Burns suddenly announced he was quitting the show. The decision rocked the production team, who tried desperately to persuade him to stay. And it would go on to shock TV watchers, fueling death rumors that grew so pervasive, Burns had to go on The Rosie O’Donnell Show to prove he was still alive. But Burns had his reasons.
In an interview with SPIN, Burns talked about a party he had gone to the year before where he heard The Flaming Lips’ album The Soft Bulletin for the first time. “It completely rearranged my head,” Burns told the magazine. The whimsical, yearning alt-rock inspired Burns to begin writing music again, something he had done as a teenager growing up in rural Pennsylvania. After quickly penning three dozen songs, Burns knew he wanted to pursue a music career. In 2003 he made good on his decision, releasing Songs for Dustmites, a critically acclaimed album that featured The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd on drums.
14. BURNS HAD OTHER REASONS, TOO.
In the years since his departure, Burns has revealed that his hair loss also influenced his decision to leave. “I refused to lose my hair on a kids’ TV show, and it was happening fast,” he said in the anniversary special. Burns has also discussed how the show’s runaway success made him uncomfortable, particularly since he didn’t intend to make a career in children’s television. “I began thinking, do they have the right guy here?” he said during his Moth monologue. “Maybe they need a teacher or a child development specialist. I was very, very conflicted about it.”
15. DONOVAN PATTON DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THE SHOW WAS ABOUT WHEN HE AUDITIONED.
Having never watched Blue’s Clues, the 24-year-old actor who would replace Burns thought the show was about a dog that played blues music. Luckily, that didn’t affect his audition for the role of replacement host. Like Burns, Patton was a hit with preschool test audiences—a reception he credited to a warm relationship with his 5-year-old sister. Burns worked extensively with Patton, and in 2002 viewers watched as Steve went off to college and his younger brother, Joe, took over.
16. BLUE’S CLUES WAS VERY EFFECTIVE.
In the years since Blue’s Clues debuted, study after study has venerated the show’s effectiveness as an educational tool. Researchers at the University of Alabama found that regular viewers displayed increased learning comprehension over non-viewers. Another study from Vanderbilt University suggested that the show’s participatory format increased social interaction in children, while others have shown that watching Blue’s Clues enhanced kids’ vocabulary. Imitation may be the greatest testament to the show’s value, with programs like Dora the Explorer following the interactive path Blue’s Clues set down.
