Horman Restaurant and Harman Cafe
Pete Harman in front of the original Harman Cafe on State Street, courtesy of Family Search
Known Name(s)
Horman Restaurant (Primary) Harman Cafe (Secondary)
Address
1270 East 21st St. Salt Lake City, UT
Establishment Type(s)
Restaurant
Physical Status
Demolished
Detailed History
Lat/long random. No such street, no Hormons with similar address. Original location of this business was at 3890 South State Street.
The original location of the Harman Café in Salt Lake City still boasts a museum and restaurant dedicated to the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise and its co-founders, Leon Weston "Pete" Harman, and Colonel Harland David Sanders. Pete and his wife Arline originally opened a small café on 3890 S. State Street called the Do Drop Inn. They remodeled and expanded in 1951, changing the name to the Harman Café. Later that year, they traveled to a restaurant convention in Chicago and met Colonel Sanders, who at the time sold Southern food from a single roadside hut in Kentucky. The LDS couple and the Colonel were the only teetotalers at the convention. They spent many hours at the same table sharing stories. Pete was born into a large Mormon family of fourteen children in 1919. His mother died when he was very young, and the siblings had to assume many adult responsibilities to keep the family together. Pete and Arline later met as employees in the hospitality industry in San Francisco and returned to Salt Lake to start their own business. The Colonel was impressed with the young couple and shortly after the conference surprised them with a visit to Salt Lake. He offered to cook them his secret fried chicken recipe. Pete and Arline immediately added the dish to their menu. Pete suggested they call it “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Their restaurant became so popular that they expanded to a second location in Sugarhouse. The Harmans and the Colonel decided to take the franchise nationwide. Pete came up with the phrase “finger-lickin’ good.” He suggested the signature to-go bucket in the era when drive-thrus were still rare. Pete set more important precedents by offering profit-sharing for his employees and recruiting women as managers. One employee wrote a testimonial upon Harman’s death in 2014. “Pete was always cheerful and upbeat, and his employees all thought the world of him. He was really nice to me. He was successful because his management people were able to have a share of ownership in the company. Apparently Harman extended this famous hospitality to diners from the Green Book from 1959 - 1961.
Sources consulted:
The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar 31, 1957, page 55.
Josh Ozersky, Colonel Sanders and the American Dream, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012), 40. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utah/detail.action?docID=3443634.
Unatributed letter, 03/19/2015, FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/photos /artifacts/120354626?p=47204621&returnLabel=Leon%20Weston%20%22Pete%22%20Harman%20(KW8D-6GH)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FKW8D-6GH
