Frank Hardart

Frank Hardart Sr. (October 22, 1850 – December 10, 1918) was the co-founder with Joseph V. Horn of Horn & Hardart, the food service company that launched the Horn & Hardart Automat cafeterias in Philadelphia and New York. Patrons at the Automats could serve themselves by putting coins into a wall of glass-fronted dispensers, opening a door to an individual serving of everything from a hot entree or sandwich to a piece of pie.

Biography Frank Hardart Sr. was born as Franz Anton Hardardt in the Bavarian community of Sondernheim, today an urban district of Germersheim, in the Palatinate (at that time a part of the Kingdom of Bavaria) in 1850, the son of Jakob Franz Hardardt II and Franziska Katharina, née Mainzer. He emigrated to America in 1858 with his widowed mother, an older brother and two sisters, who settled in New Orleans, Louisiana.

On December 22, 1888, Horn and Hardart opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia and in 1898, they incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company. Horn & Hardart's success grew as they opened lunchrooms on busy street corners in commercial areas of Philadelphia. He also took over for his father after Frank Hardart Sr. died in 1918.

Family Frank Hardart Sr. married Mary Bruen and they had six children: Florence Hardart; Frank J. Hardart Jr. (took over for his father at Horn & Hardart); Joseph Hardart; Nan Hardart; Erma Hardart; Augustin S. Hardart (Treasurer of Horn & Hardart)

Frank Hardart Jr. married Evelyn Roche. They had three children: Thomas R. Hardart, who followed his father into Horn & Hardart as the company's president and Chairman; Dr. Frank Hardart III, an OBGyn MD at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York; and Evelyn Murray of Greenwich, CT.

American business executive Frank H. Murray is the great-grandson of Frank Hardart Sr.