Ellaworth M. Statler - Table of Contents

Ellsworth M. Statler in Buffalo, NY

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Ellsworth Statler

 

1908 Statler Hotel, southeast corner of Washington and Swan

 

1908 Statler Hotel, southeast corner of Washington and Swan

 

 

1923 Statler Hotel, 107 Delaware Ave.

1923 Statler Hotel, 107 Delaware Ave.

 

Statler's house at 154 Soldier's Place. Built 1913. Demolished 1938

 

Ad showing the Statler House. at 154 Soldier's Place. Built 1913. Demolished 1938

1908 Statler Restaurant
The 1896 Ellicott Square Building had Ellsworth Statler's first restaurant. Statler first came to Buffalo in 1896 on his way home to Wheeling, West Virginia, following a fishing trip in Canada. He was overwhelmed by the Ellicott Square Building and after several days of negotiations he convinced John N. Scatherd, the building's owner, to lease him space for a restaurant. Within months, however, Statler's plush restaurant failed. Scatherd had warned him that Buffalo simply wasn't a restaurant town. Businessmen, Statler was told, more often than not went home for lunch, and if people did go out in the evening they went to places in their neighborhoods.

But Statler was determined. He redesigned his restaurant for efficiency and quick turnover. First, he fired his French chef imported from New York and hired a local man in his place. Then he introduced a serving table which he had invented. It rolled on wheels and contained separate compartments for cutlery, linens, glasses, condiments, and bread and butter.

The biggest change was in prices. Statler offered full-course lunches at twenty-five cents-paid in advance. (Statler was obsessed with "skippers." At his two thousand-room hotel near the Pan American Exposition he collected from his guests when they checked in. He also insisted that they purchase a meal ticket in advance.)

Next, he launched an advertising campaign designed to change the eating habits of Buffalonians. Every day advertisements appeared in the newspaper: "The increase in your business has been brought about by modern up-to-date methods. You can further increase your business upon the same lines. Losing the heart out of your business day by going home to noon lunches is calculated to increase the business of your competitor who lunches downtown. Let Statler's help you."

He added the notion of premium merchandising. Every day he had his chef put five-dollar gold pieces in five different servings of ice cream. Statler was revolutionizing the restaurant business and Buffalo's downtown business district in the process.

1901 Hotel, one block from the Pan-American Exposition
This was a temporary hotel to house the some of the many visitors to the Exposition. It was demolished soon after the Exposition

1908 Statler Hotel, Washington & Swan Streets
In 1896, the magnificent Gothic style St. John's Episcopal Church, built in 1846, was demolished and replaced by the Statler Hotel kitty-corner from the hive of offices in the Ellicott Square Building. See postcards of the hotel.

1923 Statler Hotel, 107 Delaware Avenue at Niagara Square
George B. Post and Son designed the Statler Hotel at 107 Delaware Avenue. Many hotels erected nationally by Ellsworth M. Statler followed. The presence of the Renaissance Revival Statler at Niagara Square (where it replaced the Hollister-Fillmore house/Hotel Fillmore/Castle Inn) accelerated the commercial development that gradually overtook the two-mile stretch of Delaware Avenue between downtown and North Street.

Ellsworth M. Statler died in his suite at the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York of double pneumonia. He was one of the best known hotel proprietors in the United States.

He built the first Statler hotel at the corner of Swan and Washington streets. Then he branched out and a string of Statler hotels were built by him in other cities.

When Niagara Square had been decided upon as a civic center, Mr. Statler bought the. old Fillmore mansion and built a large hotel thereon, calling it Hotel Statler, and changing the name of his first hotel on the corner of Swan and Washington streets to Buffalo hotel. He also built the Erlanger theatre.

Mr. Statler was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania on October 26th,1863. He was an officer in various associations and a member of several clubs, as well as a 33rd degree Mason and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France.

- Source: Buffalo Historical Society Publications, Volume 30, 1930



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