The Seelbach Hotel‘s Derby Room was advertising two Wednesday specials in The Courier-Journal 76 years ago today.
Lunch: veal loaf, pounded tomatoes, julienne potatoes, new peas, rolls and butter, plus coffee, tea, or milk for 35 cents.
Dinner: soup du jour or tomato juice, roast fresh pork ham, apple fritter, baked sweet potato, carrots and peas, rolls, butter, chiffonade salad, ice cream or jello, plus coffee, tea, or milk for 65 cents.
But wait, there was more: old “fashions” for 30 cents, and Seelbach spaghetti, 40 cents.
Fast-forward to today, and here’s what those prices would look like, adjusted for inflation: Lunch would cost $5.95, and dinner, $11.05. (But probably not at any of the Seelbach’s current restaurants.)
Related: use this inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to compare prices going back to 1913.
Boulevard focuses on news about some of Louisville’s biggest employers, nonprofits, and cultural institutions. This is one in an occasional series about them.
The spirits and wine company best known for its Jack Daniel’s, Old Forrester and Korbel brands is one of Louisville’s most storied companies. George Garvin Brown, a young pharmaceuticals salesman, started it in 1870 with $5,500* in saved and borrowed money.
Nearly 150 years later, his fifth-generation descendants sit on the board of directors, which George Garvin Brown IV chairs. And the company employs 4,000 people worldwide, with 1,000 in the Louisville area at the headquarters at 840 Dixie Highway and elsewhere.
Garvin Brown IV
The Browns control the company through their majority ownership of the voting Class A shares — a stake worth more than $10 billion, making them America’s 20th most-wealthy family, according to Forbes magazine. The Browns and the company are major supporters of Louisville cultural institutions, including the Speed Art Museum, Frazier Museum, and Actors Theatre.
The family’s hold on Brown-Forman is exceptionally rare in American business. More than 30% of all family-owned companies survive into the second generation, according to the Family Business Alliance. But the numbers dwindle rapidly after that: Just 12% make it to the third generation, and a slim 3% survive to the fourth and beyond. With the ascension of three new fifth-generation Browns to the board of directors Thursday, Brown-Forman is now firmly in fifth-generation hands.
To be sure, there are other resilient families. Just last month, Walmart announced a third generation member — Helen and Sam Walton’s grandson, Steuart Walton — was joining the board. The Mars family still owns their candy company, 105 years later. And the Sulzbergers are grooming a fourth generation to run The New York Times.
But other clans are struggling: The Redstones are now embroiled in a jaw-dropping battle over a $40 billion empire that includes Viacom and CBS. A family fight over the future of the Al Schneider real estate fortune has pit sisters against sisters. And we all know about the collapse of the Bingham family’s media holdings amid third-generation infighting in the 1980s.
In Thursday’s reshuffling of the board room, the Browns hope to avoid that fate.
A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 5:57.m.
FORD: Why Ford will beat Tesla, even as electric cars gain a toehold (Barron’s).
YUM: The company’s stock has overthrown McDonald’s as the hottest fast-food stock around. Year to date, shares have surged 9% vs. 4% for McDonald’s and a skinny 0.2% for the S&P 500 index. (The Street). Also, former Chairman David Novak says workers are “starved for recognition” from their supervisors (Business First).
PIZZA HUT today introduced 8-inch Hershey’s Toasted S’mores Cookies for a limited time at $6.99 (press release).
AMAZON has started hiring up to 500 employees for a new distribution center in Florence Township outside Trenton, N.J. “They want to be up and running in time for the Christmas holiday,” Township Administrator Richard Brook said last week (Burlington County Times).
GANNETT: Tribune Publishing’s shares dove 15% today on fears that Courier-Journal owner Gannett may rescind its $15-a-share takeover offer; Gannett’s stock fell 2.4% (Talking New Media). The chances Tribune would pursue a “Pac-Man” defense takeover of Gannett had already eased when Tribune decided to share confidential information that could pave the way for Gannett’s $864 million purchase of Tribune (Reuters).
KFC: A 29-year-old man was arrested last night in Columbus, Ga., after he allegedly approached the KFC drive-thru on Manchester Expressway completely nude (Ledger-Enquirer).
BROWN-FORMAN said today it will release fourth-quarter financial results on June 8, followed by a conference call with Wall Street analysts (press release). Meanwhile, Boulevard is sad we missed the chance on Saturday to celebrate World Whisky Day, where everyone was invited to “try a dram and celebrate the water of life” (Hot Rum Cow).
TEXAS ROADHOUSE opens one of its newest restaurants today, a $1.3 million outlet in the college town of Ithaca, N.Y. (Ithaca Voice).
CHURCHILL DOWNS: Thoroughbred racing’s now increasingly international, as NBC Sports made clear during Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, when the network teased its coverage of the Royal Ascot meeting in Britain starting next year (Chicago Now). Ascot got a big publicity boost in 1964’s “My Fair Lady.” The women’s dress code for the royal enclosure is super-strict, including this admonition: “strapless, off the shoulder, halter and spaghetti straps are not permitted” (Ascot).
For a glimpse of what the Courier-Journal can do when it really commits resources, consider today’s installment of the quarterly premium sections introduced in March. It’s devoted to all things food: from farmer’s markets to an impressive farm-to-table restaurant guide. It’s handsomely designed, as you can see in the photo, left, of the cover.
And at a $1 per-subscriber surcharge, the sections surely brings in tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue. Plus, they’ve got a long shelf life, so readers are likely to keep them well after recycling the rest of the paper.
But that’s in the CJ’s printed version. Where’s all that special new content in the other, more important edition: the website and mobile app, where coveted younger readers spend most of their time? Boulevard can’t find it online in the food section. Ditto for the farm-to-table section, or health and fitness. Strangest of all, it’s not in the subscribers-only Xtras section, even though that’s where the paper’s top editor directed readers when the first installment was published in March.
Newspapers everywhere are battling for business in a world turned upside down by online competition. But all too often, their digital distribution comes up way too short, especially when it involves content that, like freeze-dried food, has a long shelf life.
A news summary focused on big employers; updated 3:09 p.m.
The first Taco Bell Cantina in Chicago; next up is in Berkeley, Calif.
YUM: A consortium led by sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. and private equity firm KKR has ended talks to buy a stake in Yum’s 7,205-restaurant China unit, partly over Yum’s unwillingness to give up majority control because of the negative tax implications that would pose (Reuters).
GANNETT: Tribune Publishing’s defensive “Pac-Man” takeover of Courier-Journal owner Gannett would be a mouthful (New York Times). Meanwhile, Gannett’s unsolicited bid for Tribune got more personal yesterday, with each company calling out the other’s leaders by name and questioning management’s decision-making (Chicago Tribune).
TACO BELL is planning one of its next new Cantinas for Berkeley, Calif., across from San Francisco. The new formats, which target urban millennials and include alcohol on the menu, were announced last fall for Chicago and San Francisco (San Francisco Eater). The San Francisco Cantina is still alcohol-free — “no beer, no sangria, none of the boozy Mountain Dew slushies that they serve at the flagship Cantina in downtown Chicago,” thanks to a liquor license dispute with the neighbors (SF Eater, too). Taco Bell last week announced plans for four new upscale concept restaurants in Southern California.
KFC: That chicken-flavored nail polish the Internet fell in love with was a one-off by a Hong Kong franchisee; it won’t be sold company-wide. “As a brand strategy, it’s not something we will pursue,” Yum China CEO Micky Pant said in an interview yesterday after the fast food giant’s annual shareholder meeting in Louisville (Courier-Journal). Meanwhile, a video about the polish has gone viral, racking up nearly 231,000 views:
CHURCHILL DOWNS: Two horses have died today in separate incidents after races leading up to this afternoon’s Preakness Stakes (WDRB).
UPS will invest $177 million expanding its distribution hub in Columbus, Ohio, creating 75 jobs on top of the 748 employees already there (Columbus Business First).
PIZZA HUT: New Orleans police arrested a man for doing something very naughty on a mattress behind a Pizza Hut restaurant (Times-Picayune).
In other news, the Westport Village shopping center has been sold to Atlanta-based Hendon Properties for $23.8 million (Courier-Journal). The center at night, below:
Who wouldn’t want sunny Miami on a chilly late-winter day in 1954, when Eastern Air Lines advertised non-stop flights from Louisville — especially with the promise of both air-conditioned cabins and “luxurious living-room comfort”? And all for just $38.20, plus tax — a sum equivalent to $340 in today’s dollars. But was that a round-trip fare? This ad from the March 5, 1954, Courier-Journal doesn’t say.
Eastern Air Lines, which traced its beginnings to the 1920s, is long gone. Weakened by a strike, higher fuel costs, and unable to compete in a post-deregulated market, the company entered bankruptcy protection in 1989, eventually shutting down at midnight Jan. 19, 1991.
American Airlines is the only carrier currently offering non-stop service to Miami from Louisville. It recently advertised roundtrip tickets for $423.
For a glimpse of what the Courier-Journal can do when it really commits resources, consider today’s installment of the quarterly premium sections introduced in March. It’s devoted to all things food: from farmer’s markets to an impressive farm-to-table restaurant guide. It’s handsomely designed, as you can see in the photo, left, of the cover.
Boulevard 