1956 Electric Food Service Equipment Catalog

[circlew]

Featuring Hotpoint, Wells, Toastmaster and several other brands. Saw some products I never knew Hotpoint made, such as a commercial version of their 30" range, and countertop items such as roaster, roll warmer, etc.

Loading…

https

 

[fan-of-fans]

Another great find, thanks for posting!

There sure was some interesting stuff in there. I remember my local Dairy Queen having one of those Norris milk dispensers as did a local hotel. They must have made them quite recently.

I see one of those Hotpoint 5 burner ranges like I saw in the pictures from an elementary school, but interesting that one has a Calrod burner in the center.

The counter top warmers were interesting too, I have seen some of the Hotpoint ones, I've never seen any Wells ones like those.

The Hotpoint Glamourline floor fryer has an interesting syphon system to pump oil out of the tank. I never knew they had that, from what I saw the tank had to be lifted out and then poured through a filter cone into a tank in the drawer below. I also see other mfrs had electric fryer pumps even then.

None of those fryers have basket lifts options, I guess those came in the 1960s...

I see Griswold equipment also, looks similar to GE/Hotpoint. Was this the same as the famous Griswold skillet company?

 

[superocd]

Very cool find. GE/Hotpoint had quite the lineup of food service equipment back in the day. They even offered dishwashers, including a conveyor model or two. About the only thing they didn't manufacture (at least to my knowledge) were commercial fridges or freezers. They probably did at some point, I've just never seen or heard about them.

I never heard of the Griswold company. Then again, there were a ton of purveyors of commercial equipment back in the day. Victory is no longer as of recently (2012ish?). Foster is still around but I haven't seen not a one in the field.

I have to admit that as soon as I clicked the link, I flipped over to the Refrigeration section in anticipation of seeing some McCall or Koch units, which are my absolute favorites, much like a kid would flip over to the toy section of the Sears catalog as soon as it was delivered.

I'm surprised I didn't see any Lang ovens and ranges. The F.S. Lang Company was known for their electric equipment.

I'm also surprised that there was a such thing as an electric rotary oven. I'd just assumed those were all gas. That thing must have cost a FORTUNE to run! I doubt there is a running example that still exists, I'm sure the proprietor unfortunate enough to own one of those would have been bankrupt due to astronomical electric bills in no time flat. Then again, there are things like electric pottery kilns and even crematory retorts (at least in Asian countries, as far as I know).

 

[fan-of-fans]

I think Lang is still around, they're part of the Middleby Group, with Toastmaster, Wells, and Star.

I see the Hamilton Beach Multimixers that were being discussed recently.

The Chromalox hotplate looks like one I've on eBay or maybe it was on here. Didn't know it was a commercial piece, but it looks very sturdy built.

See Silex coffee equipment, must have been before they merged with Mary Proctor, or maybe a different division of the company.

That Aunt Jemima Pancake machine would be a collectible piece now I bet.

I see a lunchbox dishwasher as was seen on here by Laundress a few years back.
Some of those refrigerators look like antique household units, I don't recognize many if any of those brands to what you see now.

 

[superocd]

I take that back, Victory Refrigeration is still around. Funny because I could have sworn their website was offline a few years ago, and I'd just assumed they were out of business. Their site us up and running. Maybe they closed up shop and reopened a few years later.

These days, the commercial reach in market seems to be equally divided between Traulsen, True, Beverage-Air and the plethora of Chinese units (e.g. TurboAir).

Those fridges featured in the catalog were indeed commercial units, though they don't really look the part. When people think of commercial fridges, they think of the mammoth stainless boxes with the compressor/condenser on top rather than the bottom. The idea of the top-mounted compressor/condenser took off in the 60s, I think, though Koch had a few models with the refrigeration unit mounted in a cagelike enclosure. I'm sure a few other manufacturers did as well, like Herrick.

Chromalox sounds familiar. I think I know of them by the large electric heaters they manufacture. You usually see them in large vestibules of stores, hospitals and the like.

When I went to the section named "Kitchen Aids" I was literally expecting a selection of KitchenAid mixers. Little did I know that they meant small appliances, ha ha. Did anyone else get thrown for a curve ball on that one?