Reviving an Icon, David Arena Brings Back Horn & Hardart, Part I | Episode 146

well here's the thing though you don't have an automat right no but you still started with the brand and you started with coffee so like why like you're saying 2022 you're like covid why don't i start one of these things like it makes sense especially with what was going on why did you back off of that and say maybe i should start a little bit smaller and maybe call it a branding exercise let's start with coffee why why that

So the reality of life hit me pretty hard because I didn't have the money to just open up an automat.

So

I had to get creative.

100,000 square foot automat.

Center City, Philadelphia.

Even a small one.

We did not start this with $1 million, $2 million.

It started with me funding the initial small bit of inventory that we had.

So when I looked at...

And as you kind of alluded to, it made more sense actually to sort of, as a branding exercise, see if this brand is still relevant and can be brought back.

So when we looked at kind of what we could do, my initial thought was, if horn and hard art had never gone out of business, what would they be doing today? You know, they would obviously have their automated restaurants.

They would, they had retail shops where they were sort of selling food, pre-made dinners.

They'd probably be competing with like hello fresh today, you know, cause they had all these pre-made meals.

They, every company has some sort of online components.

So they'd be shipping something to someone somewhere.

And when we looked at all those things, I want to do all of them.

but the online component was the obvious choice for lowest risk, lowest amount of capital, best learning experience to get the brand back and branding back and sort of start relationships with manufacturers and things like that.

So that's the route we took.

So we, put up a website, got a relationship with a coffee roaster here in Philly, a really big one, another old brand.

And so they were able to run our first run of coffee and we started from there.

So that was, right now we're focused on just that direct to consumer fulfillment model.

And then before we get into the retail.

Did you ever have any other brands prior to this where you're like, man, that's a cool brand I would like to like? bring that back from the graders.

Sears would probably be the one that comes to my mind all the time of, and I think the brand is still back sort of or something.

well here's the thing though you don't have an automat right no but you still started with the brand and you started with coffee so like why like you're saying 2022 you're like covid why don't i start one of these things like it makes sense especially with what was going on why did you back off of that and say maybe i should start a little bit smaller and maybe call it a branding exercise let's start with coffee why why that

So the reality of life hit me pretty hard because I didn't have the money to just open up an automat.

So

I had to get creative.

100,000 square foot automat.

Center City, Philadelphia.

Even a small one.

We did not start this with $1 million, $2 million.

It started with me funding the initial small bit of inventory that we had.

So when I looked at...

And as you kind of alluded to, it made more sense actually to sort of, as a branding exercise, see if this brand is still relevant and can be brought back.

So when we looked at kind of what we could do, my initial thought was, if horn and hard art had never gone out of business, what would they be doing today? You know, they would obviously have their automated restaurants.

They would, they had retail shops where they were sort of selling food, pre-made dinners.

They'd probably be competing with like hello fresh today, you know, cause they had all these pre-made meals.

They, every company has some sort of online components.

So they'd be shipping something to someone somewhere.

And when we looked at all those things, I want to do all of them.

but the online component was the obvious choice for lowest risk, lowest amount of capital, best learning experience to get the brand back and branding back and sort of start relationships with manufacturers and things like that.

So that's the route we took.

So we, put up a website, got a relationship with a coffee roaster here in Philly, a really big one, another old brand.

And so they were able to run our first run of coffee and we started from there.

So that was, right now we're focused on just that direct to consumer fulfillment model.

And then before we get into the retail.

Did you ever have any other brands prior to this where you're like, man, that's a cool brand I would like to like? bring that back from the graders.

Sears would probably be the one that comes to my mind all the time of, and I think the brand is still back sort of or something.