History
Summary
The Hoffmann Coffee Company of San Antonio, Texas was founded by William Robert Hoffmann in 1899. Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee begins in 1912 when Hoffmann merges with Merchants Coffee and partners with Mr. W. E. Hayman, its founder.
Mr. Hoffmann was married to Wilhelmina “Minnie” Menger. Minnie was the daughter of Dr. Rudolph and Catherine Menger. Catherine was the daughter of William L. Menger, owner of the Menger Hotel. When Mr. Hoffmann passed away in 1912, Minnie brought her brothers, Gustav P. Menger and Rudolph W. Menger, into the coffee business.
In 1920 the remaining partner, Mr. Hayman, sold his stake in the company to the Mengers. The company continued to expand and their new factory was constructed in 1932.
By July 1964, a San Antonio Express advertisement identified H & H Coffee as “A Division of the Continental Coffee Co.”, marking the company’s sale into Continental’s regional operations. Continental continued to use the 601 Delaware plant through the late 1960s and into the early 1970s (deed records and help-wanted ads from 1967 and 1970 still list the Delaware Street address), and in August 1972 G. P. Menger sold the Hoffmann-Hayman Warehouse Co. property at 601 Delaware to Kenneth L. Wagner—closing out the Menger family’s seventy-plus-year association with the address.
Since books haven’t been written about Hoffmann-Hayman yet, this history is being pieced together from newspapers, industry journals, and other sources.
A working index of people named on this site (founders, family, officers) lives on the People page.
Timeline
Company founded
William R. Hoffmann establishes a coffee business in San Antonio—the firm that later grows into Hoffmann-Hayman.
Source: San Antonio Evening News (San Antonio, Texas) 27 September 1922 • Page 27
William R. Hoffmann marries Wilhelmina Menger
At the Mengers’ East Commerce Street home; society coverage in the Express-News (6 June) dates the wedding to 1 June 1909, and the Light (2 June) still lists the couple in its marriage-license roster—contemporary print anchors for the marriage summarized on People — William R. Hoffmann and Wilhelmina Menger Hoffmann.
Source: San Antonio Express-News society item, 6 Jun 1909 (archived PDF) · San Antonio Light license column, 2 Jun 1909 (archived PDF)
Death of William R. Hoffmann Jr.
William R. Hoffmann Jr. is born 11 December 1910 and buried 15 January 1911, less than a month old.
Source: Find a Grave
Death of William Robert Hoffmann
Born in Germany on 25 October 1878, Hoffmann dies in San Antonio at age 33 (contemporaneous San Antonio Light and Express-News notices, January 1912).
Source: Ancestry.com (RootsWeb) · Find a Grave
Hoffmann–Hayman Coffee Company chartered
The Express reports from Austin the filing of a Texas charter for The Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company of San Antonio—capital stock $20,000 (three-fourths paid in), purpose general merchandising, incorporators W. E. Hayman, Mrs. William R. Hoffmann (Minnie), and Gus P. Menger, with J. C. Neeley on the first-year board; fifty-year term. Dateline 5 February 1912; Express-News reprint 6 February.
Source: San Antonio Express-News — “Local Firm Gets Charter,” 6 Feb 1912 (archived PDF) · San Antonio Light — “San Antonio Firm Is Chartered,” 6 Feb 1912 (archived PDF)
Hoffmann merges with Merchants Coffee (Hayman)
William R. Hoffmann Coffee merges with Merchants Coffee, owned by W. E. Hayman, forming the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company. Hayman becomes president; Mrs. Hoffmann (Minnie Menger) is vice president; her brother Gus P. Menger serves as secretary.
Source: San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Texas) 4 October 1925 • page 74
Hoffmann-Hayman moves to Caffarelli building
The company leaves a back room on West Commerce for the Caffarelli wholesale grocery building at Medina and Travis (307 N. Medina). Alfred Giles designed the structure for Caffarelli Bros.
Source: San Antonio Evening News (San Antonio, Texas) 15 November 1919 • Page 6
Large Fort Sam Houston coffee order (Morrison)
The trade press reports what it calls the largest San Antonio coffee order to date for Fort Sam Houston—a carload in bulk from Morrison Coffee Co., hauled to the post by eight two-horse wagons.
Source: Coffee and Tea Industries and the Flavor Field, Volume 37 — Simmon’s Spice Mill, November 1914, page 1154
Texas highway department era begins
The state reorganizes road administration into a modern highway department (today’s TxDOT). San Antonio becomes headquarters of one of the first six divisions—useful context for how rail and then roads shaped distribution.
Source: Texas Transportation Museum
Hoffmann-Hayman acquires Morrison Coffee Co.
Hoffmann-Hayman buys Morrison Coffee and consolidates operations at 307 N. Medina—the Caffarelli / Medina–Travis quarters the firm already occupies.
Source: Simmon’s Spice Mill: Devoted to the Interests of the …, Volume 40, Part 1 • Page 291
Hayman sells out to the Mengers
W. E. Hayman sells his interest to the Menger brothers. G. P. Menger becomes president; R. W. Menger, secretary–treasurer; Mrs. William J. Schlosser (Minnie Menger Hoffmann) remains vice president.
Source: San Antonio Evening News (San Antonio, Texas) 27 September 1922 • Page 27
Hoffmann-Hayman on Burnett Street
A 1932 article on the new Delaware Street plant notes the company had already been at 331 Burnett Street for about ten years—so this entry marks that earlier plant generation, not the 1932 build.
Source: San Antonio Register (San Antonio, Texas) 29 July 1932
H and H Blend — whole bean, medium ground, and pulverized in three container sizes
The San Antonio Evening News advertises H and H Blend packed whole bean, medium ground, and pulverized, in ½ pound, 1 pound, and 3 pound containers—the grind and size matrix for the house blend in local press the same decade as the paper-label tins in the collection. Blog note with scan pointer.
Source: San Antonio Evening News (San Antonio, Texas) 18 April 1922
Three Rivers Glass Company incorporates
In Three Rivers, Texas, James Kapp is named first president; Charles Tips, secretary–treasurer; and H. L. Warrick, general manager. The plant later supplies clear and amber Crystalvac jars for H & H Coffee.
Source: TEXAS GLASS: An Illustrated History of The Three Rivers Glass Company 1922 - 1937 by Michael David Smith • Page 7
U.S. Patent 160,778 to H & H
The company receives U.S. Patent No. 160,778.
Source: Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 303
“Fires Damage Home and Coffee Plant” — slight damage at 331 Burnet
The San Antonio Light reports two small fires from the previous evening: slight damage at the Hoffman-Hayman Coffee Company, 331 Burnet Street, and a separate residential fire elsewhere. It is a dated, primary mention of the Burnet plant in routine fire news—useful context for the physical plant in the late 1920s. Full clip, transcription, and PDF on the site.
Source: Blog: Fires damage home and coffee plant — San Antonio Light, 31 August 1928 · Newspapers.com
Wall Street crash (start of the Great Depression)
Panic selling on the New York exchanges marks the beginning of the Great Depression—national context for every consumer business in the early 1930s.
Warehouse fire — Burnet plant
Informal accounts of a serious warehouse fire in the early 1930s point to the 331 Burnet Street roasting plant—not the later Delaware Street factory. Primary coverage of fire at that address includes the 31 August 1928 San Antonio Light item (slight damage). A separate dated clipping for a larger blaze at Burnet, if distinct, is still worth hunting in fire news and trade press.
Source: Blog: Fires damage home and coffee plant — San Antonio Light, 31 August 1928 · Mystery page (residual questions)
Delaware Street factory built
A purpose-built concrete plant rises at 601 Delaware Street, San Antonio, laid out for rail service—summarized here from 1932 opening coverage and related entries; a single “construction-only” cite is still to be split out from plant-opening clippings.
Source: See San Antonio Register, 29 July 1932, and San Antonio Light, 20 December 1932 (open house), on this timeline.
Crystalvac jar and vacuum pack in the press
The San Antonio Register reports on Hoffmann-Hayman’s new Crystalvac jar and vacuum-packing process—part of the firm’s shift from tin to glass for retail coffee.
Source: San Antonio Register (San Antonio, Texas) 10 June 1932 • Page 3
Railroad spur agreement (GH&SA / Texas & New Orleans)
Hoffmann-Hayman signs to use trackage built and maintained by the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway (leased to the Texas and New Orleans Railroad) to serve the new plant.
Source: County Clerk’s Office, Bexar County, Texas
Open house at the new roasting plant
The company welcomes the public to the new Delaware Street roastery with refreshments, music, and an evening WOAI radio broadcast starting at 8 p.m. Newspaper promotion bills it as a showplace Southwest coffee plant.
Source: San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Texas) 20 December 1932 • Page 7-A
Dutch Lunch Mustard added to spice line
Newspaper advertising announces Dutch Lunch Mustard as a new Hoffmann-Hayman spice item—evidence of how far beyond coffee the “H & H” name reached in the 1930s.
Source: San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) 27 November 1933 • Page 7
Sam Houston, H & H, and Texas Girl jars in Southwest markets
A San Antonio Express piece describes strong demand for Sam Houston, H & H, and Texas Girl Crystalvac jars; housewives reuse the wide-mouth jars for canning, and the glass fits standard Kerr and Mason-Ball closures.
Source: San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) 10 September 1934 • Page 7
Ball acquires Three Rivers Glass Co.
Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company of Muncie, Indiana, buys the Three Rivers plant and runs it for roughly another decade before shutdown.
Source: Ball.com history poster (PDF)
World War II begins in Europe
Germany invades Poland; Britain and France declare war. Global mobilization, rationing, and labor shortages later touch every food packager, including firms like Hoffmann-Hayman, even before U.S. entry.
Source: Wikipedia: World War II
Mi Tierra opens in Market Square
Pedro Cortez buys the Toyo Café in Market Square and renames it Mi Tierra—San Antonio dining context for the same decades H & H still roasts nearby.
Source: Wikipedia: Mi Tierra Café
Second-floor addition, Delaware Street plant
The south-facing second-story windows over Delaware are bricked in; new walls rise above the old parapet, enclosing storage space. Penciled warehouse notes on the interior walls suggest inventory use—details from later building survey and photography on this site.
Source: Site documentation — factory building survey and photography (primary permits or news clip still to be filed).
North-end wing at 601 Delaware
A two-story wing is added at the north end of the Delaware Street property, expanding roasting and warehouse capacity.
Source: Site documentation — structural survey notes (deed or building permit cite pending).
Death of Minnie (Wilhelmina) Schlosser
Trade press carries word of the death of Mrs. Wilhelmina (Minnie) Schlosser, née Menger—long tied to Hoffmann-Hayman as an officer and part of the Menger family leadership after Hayman’s buyout.
Source: Coffee and Tea Industries and the Flavor Field, Volume 79 — Spice Mill Publishing Company, 1956
City contract — coffee for the San Antonio jail
City Council adopts Ordinance 27,684, awarding Hoffmann-Hayman the jail’s coffee supply for 1 August 1959 through 31 July 1960 (recorded in Ordinance Book 1.1, page 245).
Source: Regular Meeting of The City Council of The City of San Antonio on Thursday, June 25, 1959 At 8:30 a.m.
Death of Dr. William J. Schlosser
Born 12 August 1875 in Kentucky, Dr. Schlosser dies in San Antonio on 21 February 1963.
Source: Find a Grave
Newspaper ad — H & H as a Continental Coffee division
A San Antonio Express advertisement congratulating Santa Rosa Medical Center on choosing H & H Coffee carries a footer line reading “A Division of the Continental Coffee Co.”
Source: San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) 12 July 1964 • Page 69
Continental Coffee at Hoffmann-Hayman Warehouse Co. (deed record)
Bexar County Clerk records document Continental Coffee operating in connection with the Hoffmann-Hayman Warehouse Company—part of the paper trail as corporate names shift in the 1960s.
Source: County Clerk’s Office, Bexar County, Texas
Help-wanted ad lists 601 Delaware
A Continental Coffee job notice in the Express and News uses the Delaware Street plant address, tying the firm to the old H & H facility in the early 1970s.
Source: Express and News (San Antonio, Texas) 11 July 1970 • Page 37
601 Delaware offered for sale
The San Antonio Express carries a real-estate listing for the Delaware Street property as the company era at that address winds down.
Source: San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) 28 March 1972 • Page 27
Sale of Hoffmann-Hayman Warehouse Co. (601 Delaware)
President G. P. Menger executes a sale contract with buyer Kenneth L. Wagner, recorded with the Bexar County Clerk.
Source: County Clerk’s Office, Bexar County, Texas
Texas Historical Marker — Three Rivers Glass Company
The Texas Historical Commission dedicates a marker at the Three Rivers glassworks site, recognizing it as an early Texas glass manufacturer—part of the Crystalvac story that intersects H & H jars.
Source: Michael David Smith, Texas Glass, page 31
601 Delaware as B&W toy warehouse
Kenneth L. Wagner, president of B&W Service Co., advertises from the address as a toy wholesaler distributing for World Toy House of St. Paul, Minnesota—one post-factory reuse of the plant.
Source: San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) 6 March 1975 • Page 45
Ball Corporation exits glass
Ball Corporation (successor to Ball Brothers) sells its remaining glass interests to Saint-Gobain and pivots toward metal packaging and aerospace—a coda to the Ball era that included Three Rivers Crystalvac production.
Source: Ball.com history poster (PDF)
Three Rivers Glass Show (80th anniversary)
Collectors and historians meet in Three Rivers for a weekend show marking eighty years since the glassworks closed—tables of Crystalvac and other South Texas glass, talks, and a historical-marker walk. Field notes appear on this site.