BETTER By: Melissa B. Carrasco
Egerton, McAfee, Armistead & Davis, P.C.
THE QUALITY OF THE MAN Joel was a schoolteacher, at least that is where his heart was. But, after a couple of years of teaching, he learned what most schoolteachers learn: teaching may be a rewarding career, but the rewards are not monetary. At that time, teaching in rural Kentucky did not pay enough to cover the mortgage, so Joel left education and became a salesman.1 Joel’s job was to sell groceries throughout the Cumberland region of Tennessee and Kentucky.2 Since the year was 1869, there were not many roads running through that area—at least not roads that were passable by a motor vehicle. That means Joel had to cover his territory on horseback. He packed a clean shirt and a few supplies on one side of his saddlebag and the grocery samples on the other, and for the next twenty-eight years, Joel worked his way up to become the most successful grocery salesman in all of Kentucky and Tennessee.3 If you had visited the Cumberland region of Tennessee or Kentucky at that time, you would have found that there were not many creature comforts available. It would be almost ninety years before the first Holiday Inn would open in the big city of Memphis, Tennessee.4 It was over a century before motels would start popping up in rural Tennessee and Kentucky. So, when Joel was on the road, he had to rely on the hospitality of the good people that he met along the way.5 As it turns out, staying in different homes night after night was a very good thing for Joel. First, it gave Joel an insider’s track about what the buying public wanted. He got to spend time in a lot of kitchens talking to the people who were buying the groceries. In turn, he was able to make recommendations to the grocers in that area about what should be on their shelves. Second, he drank a lot of coffee. I mean a LOT of coffee . . . and the quality of the coffee varied a lot as well. At that time, coffee was sold green and unroasted.6 People would buy the green beans, roast them at home, grind them, and then make coffee—usually by pouring boiling water over the grounds.7 It was the Dark Ages. Coffee anarchy was at an all-time high. Some coffee was remarkably better than others. Some was remarkably worse. Joel started bringing samples of the good coffee grounds home with him. He started experimenting to see what combination of coffee beans, roasting techniques, and brewing produced a better cup of coffee. It wasn’t easy. One of the biggest challenges was finding a blend of coffee beans that produced a consistent flavor, since most of the beans were shipped from South America. Joel described in like this: “Way back yonder when I didn’t have money, I saw the possibilities in the coffee business. I knew that in my experiments in the coffee business, I had developed a blend of exceptional quality, and I believed I could sell it.”8 So, in 1898, he left the grocery business—by then, he was an owner— and founded the Nashville Coffee and Manufacturing Company which packaged, and sold roasted, ground coffee, according to Joel’s experimental formula.9 Soon after, he partnered with L.T. Webb, J.J. Norton, and J.W. Neal to form the Cheek-Neal Coffey Co., and they were in business.10 The business started small. First, Joel and his partners focused on getting the pre-roasted, pre-ground coffee blend into the Nashville market. That was easier said then done, but Joel was a salesman after all. He set his sights on having his coffee served at the most prestigious hotel in Nashville—the Maxwell House—and after weeks of work, finally convinced the hotel manager to brew and serve his coffee to the guests one Sunday morning.11 You don’t need me to tell you that the coffee was wellreceived—so well-received, in fact, that the Maxwell House allowed Joel and his company to use its name for the coffee blend.12 After achieving success in the Nashville market, they expanded across the South, setting up roasting, grinding, packaging, and distribution April 2022
facilities in Houston, Jacksonville, and Richmond.13 That way, those iconic cans of coffee could be placed on store shelves within days of the coffee coming out of the grinder. By 1921, Maxwell House coffee had conquered the South, but Joel was not done. He set his sights on New York and opened a roasting, griding, and packaging facility in the heart of Brooklyn.14 But, Brooklyn was not the South. By then, New York already had a number of coffee wholesalers selling their own varieties of roasted and ground coffee brands, and no one was interested in giving up shelf space to some coffee company from Nashville.15 So, Joel went back to his salesman roots and did what any salesman would do. He went big. The Cheek-Neal Coffee Company put up eighteen giant signs along Broadway, stretching from Forty-Second to Seventy-Ninth, advertising Maxwell House coffee. They hired a team of salespeople to spend every day going to retailers, persuading them to buy even a couple of cans of coffee. Joel and his partners were convinced that, if people would just try the coffee, they would never stop.16 They were right. By 1924, over 92% of grocery stores, delis, and restaurants in New York City carried the Maxwell House brand.17 Maxwell House coffee was so iconic that, one year later, the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company was acquired by none other than Marjorie Post and the Postum Company.18 In a 1924 interview, Joel O. Cheek was asked why Maxwell House coffee was so successful. “His answer was swift and unhesitating, ‘The quality of the coffee.’”19 That may be so, but it is only part of the equation. Cheek went on to say, “Business is an aspect of morality. If a business transaction is not based upon the intention of helping the other man, it is wrong, and because it is wrong, will lead to failure.”20 Certainly the quality of the coffee helped, but it was the quality of Joel Cheek himself that built an iconic business. The quality of the man built something better. 1
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DICTA
Jeff Walter, The Maxwell House-Cheekwood Saga began with a Young Teacher in Debt, The Tennessean (Jul. 23, 2003), available at https://www.newspapers.com/ image/?clipping_id=22250891&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9. yJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjExMzYyMDIyNywiaWF0IjoxNjQ2ODU5MTE3LCJleHAiOjE 2NDY5NDU1MTd9.knKvHL3ATJd0dOPpgPbagwDA_1omPKehazooiTqySig. The Tennessean, Writer Traces Career of Joel Cheek and Maxwell House Coffee’s Rise (Marc. 9, 1924), available at https://www.newspapers.com/ image/?clipping_id=6729159&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9. yJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE3ODM2ODAzNiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ2ODU4NjI4LCJleHAiOjE2N DY5NDUwMjh9.7VEj1E8UdlkG665xTrEtFfyTscB_Qcbo2VrRF5L3OWU. Id. Douglas Martin, Kemmons Wilson, 90, Dies; was Founder of Holiday Inn, NY Times (Feb. 14, 2003), available at https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/business/ kemmons-wilson-90-dies-was-holiday-inn-founder.html#:~:text=the%20 American%20road.-,’’,lumberyard%20and%20two%2Dlane%20highway. Walter, supra n.1. The Tennessean, supra n. 2. Id. Id. Id. Walter, supra n. 1. Id. Id. The Tennessean, supra n.2. Id. Id. Id. Id. Gary Hoover, Forgotten Giant: General Foods, American Business History Center (Oct. 23, 2020), https://americanbusinesshistory.org/forgotten-giant-general-foods/. For more information on Marjorie Post and how she transformed the American food industry, see Freezing but not Frozen¸ DICTA (Feb. 2022). The Tennessean, supra n.2. Id.
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