William Holmes Childs (1865-1938) was elected to The Lambs on February 9, 1893, as a Non-Professional Member. He and his brother, Samuel Childs, founded Childs Restaurants in the 1880s. He helped build up an empire of the nation’s first chain of restaurants, while promoting a vegetarian diet in the Gilded Age.
He was one of a family of nine, born July 1, 1865, in Bernards Township, New Jersey, fifty miles southwest of Manhattan.
As a child growing up on his father’s farm in rural New Jersey, he developed a milk route in the area and delivered fresh vegetables in the 1870s. Samuel was two years older than William. As young men, the brothers went West to roam around during the 1880s as engineers. After dining in scores of eating establishments, and knowing a lot about how food is grown, they decided to return East to launch their own restaurant. To gain experience in the industry, they both took restaurant jobs. Samuel lasted but William was fired.
The first of the Childs restaurants opened in 1889 in the old Merchants Hotel at 41 Cortlandt Street, in lower Manhattan. It was a simple and clean cafeteria-style lunch counter. They started the company with only $1,600 in capital with furnishings they made themselves on the family farm in Bernardsville. Forty years later the company was worth $36 million (about $676 million today).
What made Childs different from other New York restaurants was its quick-and-easy cafeteria format. The menu was simple with fresh milk, eggs, hot cakes, muffins, ham sandwiches, and coffee for a nickel. The brothers made sure its setting was uniquely its own—one that customers could come to recognize whether they were in Atlantic City, Baltimore, or Brooklyn. Childs not only installed white tile walls and floors with marble countertops, but the Childs staff also wore purely white uniforms, not common at a lunch counter. They grilled waffles in the windows for passersby to watch (and smell). It was claimed the brothers were the first to hire women to wait tables.
Ten years after they launched the company, the brothers opened their largest and most grand location yet, on Broadway and Cedar Streets. After 1909 the company expanded to open more locations in the region and Canada. In the 1920s, Childs opened up three places on Fifth Avenue, and changed their design to farm tones.
The popular lunchroom chain would reach its peak in the 1920s, expanding to more than 100 restaurants across the Midwest and East Coast, including their flagship Coney Island location in 1923. When Samuel died in 1925, the Chain had 107 locations in 29 cities. They were serving 50 million meals a year.
William was a vegetarian and espoused the practice. This helped the company grow during World War I, when the U.S. urged citizens to skip meat. But keeping meat off the menu led to a decline in business. He believed patrons should order “a nice balanced ration of 855 calories, with plenty of vitamins sprinkled on top.” Today, nutrition guidelines hew close to 2,000 calories a day is healthy. He conceded later that he took his calorie-counting too far. “I never wanted to inflict my own personal food habits on the public, I did it for the same reason I put white tile in my first restaurant. I honestly thought that was what the public wanted.”
Stockholders forced Childs to resign as president of the company in December 1928. He was made chairman of the board, but after a year, he ousted the new president and regained control. He was soon ousted a second time. He retired to his 550-acre farm in Bernardsville, New Jersey. He devoted his time to restoring a mill that dated to the American Revolution, and open an all-new venture, the Old Mill Inn. During the height of the Depression, he hired fifty men and paid them Union wages to restore the mill and build up the property and grounds. It is still in business in Basking Ridge, and the dining room is named for him.
William Holmes Childs died of heart disease on May 22, 1938, in Bernardsville, New Jersey. He was 72 years old. He interred nearby in the Childs family plot in Basking Ridge Presbyterian Cemetery, next to his siblings and parents.
In 2011, the stunning Coney Island Childs Restaurant former location, 1208 Surf Avenue, was designated a New York City Landmark. The building was restored to its former glory, and is today the home to Coney Island USA. In 2025, the landmark bronze plaque was unveiled. It contains the names of William and Samuel Childs.
— Researched and written by Shepherd Kevin C. Fitzpatrick