RICHARDS TREAT RESTAURANT: MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.):

Richards Treat Inc., consisting of a cafeteria and adjoining bakeshop located at 114 South Sixth Street in Minneapolis and a nearby coffee shop located at 188 Northwestern National Bank Building, was owned and managed by Nola Treat and Lenore Richards. The business opened in November 1924 and operated for almost 33 years under the motto "Quality food for Quality Folk." The business was ranked, for a time, as one of the ten best dining places in the United States and one of the two best cafeterias.

At its height Richards Treat had five dining rooms that seated 300 people and served an average of 3,000 people per day. The main room featured a maple cupboard furnished with pewter tableware. A fireplace room, with two fireplaces, was located in the basement. Antiques and imported furnishings were found throughout. While there were no set menus at Richards Treat there were two items available daily. Apple pie was available at every meal and chicken pie (just chicken, gravy and crust; no vegetables) was available each evening. In 1946 the business was incorporated; prior to that it operated as a partnership.

Nola Treat (1885-1983) was born near Mattoon, Illinois and attended college at Millikin University in Decatur and Rockford College in Rockford. She received further training in home economics from Columbia University in New York City. Her first job was at Kansas State University in Manhattan where she established courses in instutitional management and ran the campus cafeteria. Lenore Richards became her assistant at Kansas State. Treat moved on to Indiana Univeristy where she did similar work and then on to the University of Minnesota (1918-1924), where Lenore Richards joined her as an assistant professor in the home economics department.

Lenore Richards (1892-1971) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska and attended the University of Nebraska for one year and then went on to graduate from the University of Illinois in home economics. Her father, Charles Russ Richards, was dean of the college of engineering at Illinois and then president of Lehigh University from 1922 to 1935.

While at the University of Minnesota the two women jointly wrote Quantity Cookery and Tea Room Recipes as well as managed the campus cafeteria on the University's agricultural campus in St. Paul. Quantity Cookery was revised twice, went through almost 30 printings and was used in the restaurant trade, as a college textbook, and by the United States Army in World War II.

The two women decided to see if their management principles and recipes would succeed in the real world and began planning to open a restaurant. They selected a site in downtown Minneapolis that had plenty of competition. The previous business there had failed and public speculation believed the two women would not last more than a few months in the competitive restaurant business.

Their good food and reasonable prices won regular customers. Richards Treat became a training ground for young college women majoring in home economics who could gain experience in all areas of the restaurant trade before graduation. During their first ten years Richards Treat hired only female employees and at its height never had more than eight to ten men (mainly busboys) among its 80 employees.

Treat ran the counters, the office, and kept the records while Richards managed purchasing and food preparation. The women shared a house at 24 Park Lane in Minneapolis, were active in many organizations and clubs, including the Minnikahda Club, and traveled the world together. Both were both on the board of directors of the National Restaurant Association, successively chairing its education committee (Treat 1937-1942; Richards 1942-1956), and both were named to the American Restaurant Magazine's Hall of Fame in 1957.

Richards Treat closed in mid July 1957 to make room for the construction of the new First National Bank building.

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This collection is arranged into three major series: the business records of Richards Treat Inc.; family papers of Nola Treat and other Treat family members; and papers of Lenore Richards and other members of the Richards family.

Business records of Richards Treat are arranged into subject files, financial records, recipes, and rough drafts of the 1966 edition of Quantity Cookery. The subject files contain newspaper and magazine articles on the history of Richards Treat, anniversary cards and notices, comments from customers, employee reminisciences, instructions to employees, menus, signs, stationary examples, and other materials related to management of the restaurant. The financial records, while not complete, cover most of the 33 years Richards Treat was in business. Income tax returns cover about twenty years of operation. Recipes, collected by Nola Treat and Lenore Richards, many scribbled on pieces of scratch paper and on backs of envelopes and menus, show signs of use in the kitchen. They have been roughly arranged by food group (meats, cakes, pies, soups etc.) and comprise three and one half boxes. The Quantity Cookery materials include various editions of the book with annotations and the rough draft and galley proofs to the 1966 edition, as well as some correspondence with the publisher, Little Brown & Company.

Nola Treat's papers include some articles and speeches; correspondence to her mother, Mary W. Treat, and to Lenore Richards; diaries; and materials relating to her donations to Millikin University, Lehigh University, the Courage Center, and Abbott-Northwestern Hospital. Mary W. Treat's papers contain diaries, letters to her daughter and to Lenore Richards, general correspondence, and material relating to the settlement of her estate in Gays, Illinois. Other Treat family papers concern the diaries and writings of R.A. Wallace Treat, U.S. delegate to the Angora, Turkey peace conference of 1925-1927; and Booze, Jeffries, Mills, and Walker family letters.

The papers of Lenore Richards include articles and speeches, correspondence to Nola and Mary Treat, travel information, investment correspondence and appraisals, and income tax returns. Other Richards family papers concern her father, Charles Russ Richards, mainly while he was president of Lehigh University; and her brother, Robert Watts Richards. The collection concludes with a folder related to Richards family genealogy.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Richards Treat Inc. Business Records and Family Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession numbers: 13,313; 15,500

Processing Information:

Processed by: Richard W. Arpi, September 2006

Catalog ID number: 990017351540104294

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Several editions of Quantity Cookery co-authored by Nola Treat and Lenore Richards, as well as collection of Richards Treat cafeteria photographs, can be found in the library of the Minnesota Historical Society.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Diplomatic and consular service, American.

Land tenure -- Illinois.

Restaurants -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Women-owned business enterprises -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Places:

Minneapolis (Minn.)

Gays (Ill.)

Europe -- Description and travel.

Korea -- Description and travel.

Turkey -- History--20th century.

Persons:

Richards, Charles Russ, 1871-1941.

Richards, Lenore.

Treat, R. A. Wallace, 1895-1929.

Treat, Nola.

Treat, Mary Jane Walker, 1853-1945.

Organizations:

Lehigh University.

Millikin University.

National Restaurant Association.

Types of Documents:

Diaries.

Menus.

Photographs.

Recipes.

Occupations:

Businesswomen -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis.

Women authors.

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