Duncan Hines (27 page)

Hines had a considerable influence on the fortunes of many establishments offering lodging to travelers. His files contained many letters from proprietors whose businesses had literally been saved from bankruptcy thanks to a listing in
Lodging for a Night
. One elderly architect who invested his life's savings in a Massachusetts lodge known as the Cape Cod Inn wrote Hines, “I was about to close my doors when a stream of guests appeared like the robins. They all carried the Duncan Hines books under their arms. You certainly saved our lives.” Had it not been for his penchant for “exceptional inns tucked away in mills or barns or distinctive old homes” many of which were located off the main highways, no one would have ever found them.
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By 1947,
Lodging for a Night
had undergone a few changes. The introduction had been substantially shortened, and his voluble comments about motels had been reduced to two paragraphs. The motel industry had undergone significant changes since 1941; they were no longer little better than comfortable shacks.
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In his update on motels, Hines said “the modern motor court, when under competent management, offers the motorist the maximum convenience in pleasant and comfortable lodging accommodations. More and more of the deluxe type are being built throughout the
country, having such conveniences as telephones, radios, electric razor outlets, air conditioning, carpeted floors, tile baths, etc., also private locked garages.” In short, they were far and away better than the prevailing norm when Hines began to compile his first volume. The increased trade that motels experienced during and after the war made it financially possible for their owners to offer an ever expanding number of luxuries.
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The war brought about this change. After America's entry into the Second World War, motels began receiving a class of Americans who, beforehand, had never entered one. Up until that time the public had, by and large, stayed away in droves because they did not want to be associated with the “bounce-on-the-bed” trade, i.e., the type of people who kept many motels financially afloat. They also did not want to be identified entering what were sometimes viewed as legitimized houses of prostitution or convenient places to dump murder victims. Despite this aura that hung over the industry, during the war newer customers began to patronize motels in increasing numbers because, quite often, they had no choice; a motel was frequently the only place available to spend the night. More often than not, the newer customers came from a different economic and social class; and since they were from a more prestigious social milieu with more money to spend, motel owners began to take measures to ensure they would return as well as hope they would recommend it to their friends, who were, undoubtedly, also from similar economic and social circles. Assessing the type of trade that had been keeping their industry alive and deciding it was no longer economically healthy for them, motel owners began to screen the patronage of those they served. The strategy was effective. By the end of 1940s this newer class of customer had, more or less, driven out the “no tell” motel image. The widespread patronage of this newer type of customer enabled the industry to financially improve its image at an astonishing pace; within a few years after the war, motels had displaced hotels as Americans' favorite place to sleep. “By 1948 there were over 26,000 [motel] courts—twice the [number found in the] 1939 census. Another 15,000 were built between 1949 and 1952.”
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When a motel provided its customers with luxuries that only a few years ago seemed unimaginable, Hines noticed. If the establishment was of exceptionally fine quality in all respects, he included it in his lodging guide. Well, almost. After the war, the motel also had to offer one other important item to receive his recommendation: a good dining facility. He only gave his blessing to motels with high quality dining rooms and coffee shops, and he believed his reasoning was justified. People were tired upon their arrival and they did not want to leave the motel to find a place to dine. Besides, when a motel offered both a place to sleep and eat, each feature simultaneously promoted the other. His insistence on this feature therefore, is why almost all good motels of the day began to have dining facilities.
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Craving anonymity when he could find it, Hines did not advertise his arrival when he slept somewhere. As with restaurants, he believed his readers would be badly served if he alerted an innkeeper he was planning to spend the night there. Why give a proprietor the whole day to create for him a false impression? It was either a good place to sleep or it was not. To avoid this potential travesty, he made his reservation under another name. Once ensconced in the lodging of his choice, he walked around the premises to “scrape up conversations with other travelers…[to discover] what places they liked along the highway….” In this way he usually learned of even better lodgings elsewhere. When he arrived at one of them a day or so later, instead of checking in for the evening, he first asked to see an unoccupied room. After being shown one, he performed a routine yet thorough inspection in an effort to see just how clean and comfortable it really was. First he “would thump the beds to see if they [had] springs,” then he would “count the blankets, try the plumbing,” and “turn on the lights to see if” he was “paying for burned-out or thirty-watt bulbs.” If anything fell below his standards, he asked to see another room. If he could not find a room to meet his specifications, he left.
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As in any hotel or motel, there are better rooms than others. Hines had a stratagem for getting a good one. “The way I make sure the room is the one [I] want is by asking, after I register, ‘May
I see the rooms you have available?' If I'm an early bird, I know there is some choice. It takes some nerve to do that…but in these times the timid traveler gets the leftovers.” He noticed that unlike hoteliers in the cities, “motor court and tourist-home operators are invariably gracious about showing rooms; that is one reason why they are luring business away from the hotels.” But he had another theory as to why motels were increasingly attracting business away from those polished palaces: the “convenience of having your car near your room, and the ease of getting away without a spasm of tipping.” Tipping. Hines was sure this was why so many people hated hotels, and it was his biggest pet peeve about them. “Lodging the customer for the night has become a racket,” Hines said, “particularly in some of the big hotels, the object of which is to separate him from as much cash as possible, and as fast as possible.” He grew exasperated every time he mentioned the subject. He wrote that “the tipping racket is driving customers out of the hotels” and “into the motor courts and tourist homes. It begins with the doorman and the bellboys. You drive up to a hotel, the doorman unloads your baggage; he has a smile, is very courteous, and you tip him. He proceeds to set the bags inside the door and go back on the street to wait for the next customer. Then comes the bellboy, and he carries the bags into the lobby and stands by your side while you register, and says, ‘Yes, sir, your bags are right here and I am watching them.' So you tip him, thinking he is the boy who is going to escort you to your room. But as soon as you give him a tip he disappears. Then another boy comes along and carries your bags up, opens the door and the window, turns on the lights, and asks you if there is anything else. There being none, you tip him and he is gone. Then, inside of ten minutes, along comes the maid, and she says, ‘Yes, ma'am'—whether she is talking to me or my wife. ‘I just want to inspect the beds and see if they have clean sheets on them, and see if you've got plenty of towels.' Just for the devilment, I say, ‘If we haven't got all those things, why the heck will they rent me a room at eight bucks a day?' She says, ‘I don't know. I just want to make sure you are comfortable.' So
what? You give her fifty cents to get rid of her.” Little wonder why Hines called tipping “a racket.”

In the restaurant industry “another racket is headwaiter tipping,” he said. When he and Clara arrived at a high-priced restaurant, they usually discovered that they had to wait in the lounge or bar until called. Hines noticed this never failed to happen despite the fact he had made reservations well in advance. When he spied several unoccupied tables and pointed them out to the management, it made no difference. On these occasions Hines sometimes slipped the waiter two dollars to get a seat, but only to prove to himself the “tipping racket” was alive and well. Usually when Hines dined he had a firm rule about tipping: “…twenty-five cents per person, when I am served with courtesy. If the waiter is surly, I give nothing.”
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Hines and Clara developed a routine when on the road. Before starting out that morning they ate a light breakfast. Shortly before noon they dined on an equally light lunch. They ate just enough during these first two meals to taste and comment on them. Unless circumstances dictated otherwise, their big meal was reserved for that evening. Before going to a restaurant for their feast, however, they relaxed. They usually pulled into a hotel or motel around 3:00 or 4:00
P.M.
, stretched out on the bed after settling into their room, and took a nap. They had been driving for six or seven hours and relaxation before dinner was essential; they were always meeting people wherever they dined, often individuals of some importance; so Hines could ill-afford to be seen as tired and cranky. He wanted to feel fresh when he arrived at the restaurant. He also wanted to be seen as immaculately dressed. No one ever saw him in dirty clothes. Even when he attended family picnics in Bowling Green and wore work clothes, his garments were excessively clean.
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Clara traveled with Hines just as much as Florence did a decade earlier. An example of their extensive travels together was one that took place during July and August 1947. On 6 July they left Bowling Green shortly after noon and arrived in Evansville, Indiana three hours later, where they spent the night at the McCurdy Hotel, a large opulent structure about which Hines
wrote: “Most hotel food is blah, but that is not true of this hotel.”
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The following day they arrived at their destination, Urbana, Illinois, where Hines spoke at the Urbana-Lincoln Hotel to a group of students and faculty members from the University of Illinois on the importance of restaurant cleanliness and other related topics. From there he and Clara drove to Chicago. While in town they received a call from a friend in Negaunee, Michigan, located in Michigan's upper peninsula, who invited them to sample that area's local cuisine. Hines and Clara accepted the invitation and drove there a day or two later, where they were treated to dishes of Cornish pasty, venison steak, and partridge. The following day they visited another friend's lumber camp and ate flapjacks with the lumberjacks. The size of the flapjacks suited these men perfectly, being one quarter-inch thick and nine inches in diameter, twelve to fifteen of them piled high on each plate. Their table also included “17 varieties of sweets.”

The next day Hines and Clara journeyed to Rochester, Minnesota, and visited the Mayo clinic for a thorough medical examination; said Hines afterward, doctors found both he and Clara “disgustingly healthy.” From there they crossed the Wisconsin state line and headed for Mineral Point, the home of one of Hines's favorite restaurants, the Pendarvis House. Wrote Hines some years earlier,

Pendarvis House is one of the few places in this country where real Cornish meals are served, prepared from old authentic recipes, and where scalded cream (often called Devonshire or clotted cream) may be had. Their Cornish pasty, hearty and appetizing, is served for luncheon or dinner with homemade relishes and pickles, and green salads with fresh herbs. Wild plum, citron or gooseberry preserves with the scalded cream, tea and saffron cake, served as dessert, are delights which will thrill the most jaded gourmet's palate.
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As he had so many times before, Hines enjoyed his meal but was especially ecstatic over the Pendarvis House's cream of spinach soup.

The next day they drove southward to St. Charles, Illinois, to eat at the Thornapple Lodge. “Here you get a Swedish dinner,” said Hines, “with loads of smorgasbord.”
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The following day was a long one, as they drove first through Indiana and then into the adjacent state before stopping, finally, in Ashland, Ohio, where they ate salad, T-Bone steak, chicken, and pie at the Cottage Restaurant on Main Street.
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From there it was on to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, not so much to eat at the Penn-Wells Hotel but to take advantage of the lovely, 50-mile drive through Penn's Grand Canyon, which was estimated to be 1,000 feet deep.
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While traveling through this scenic landscape, they were forced to make a detour over an unpaved road, which resulted in a tire “blow out.” After repairing it, they continued eastward until they stopped to eat and sleep at the Rip Van Winkle cottages, located at the foot of the Catskill Mountains.

After a night's rest, they traveled over the Mohawk trail through the Berkshires and on to Concord, Massachusetts to eat in the Old Mill Dam Tavern, a restaurant that was once the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson. There they dined on Vermont sausage and baked beans before heading for Boston where they stayed at the Parker House. Here, Hines let Clara loose upon the city for a day's worth of antique hunting. That night they ate swordfish steaks at Boston's Union Oyster House at 41 Union Street. The following evening they feasted on beef steaks at that city's famed restaurant, Durgin Park, located at 30 North Market Street, which was across the road from Faneuil Hall and was the home of 4,000-5,000 daily customers who gobbled down the New England fare that Hines proclaimed to be the best regional food in America.