J. Lyons and Co

J. Lyons & Co. was a market dominant British restaurant chain, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884.

The company began as collaboration between the professional artist Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein, as a spin off from the Salmon & Gluckstein tobacco company. In 1894 the company started a teashop in Piccadilly, London, and from 1909 developed this into a chain of teashops known as Lyons' Corner Houses. The company also ran high class restaurants, founding the Trocadero in 1895, and hotels including the Strand Palace, opened in 1909, the Regent Palace, opened in 1915, and the Cumberland Hotel, opened in 1933, all in London. From the 1930s Lyons began to develop a pioneering range of teas, biscuits and cakes that were sold in grocery stores across the world.

Lyons, who also founded the UK's Territorial Force, now known as the Army Reserve, was appointed to run the company, and it was named after him.

J. Lyons & Co. was a pioneer in introducing computers to business. Between 1951 and 1963, the company manufactured and sold a range of LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) computers.

The company was a substantial food manufacturer, with factories at Cadby Hall in Hammersmith, and from 1921 at Greenford, producing bread, cakes, pies, tea, coffee and ice cream.

To the public, J. Lyons & Co. were best known for their chain of tea shops which opened from 1894 and finally closed in 1981, and for the Lyons Corner Houses in the West End of London. The tea shops were slightly more up market than their ABC (Aerated Bread Company) counterparts. They were notable for their interior design, from the 1920s Oliver P. Bernard being consultant artistic director. Until the 1940s they had a certain working-class chic, but by the 1950s and 60s they were quick stops for busy shoppers where one could drink a cup of tea and eat a snack or an inexpensive meal. The tea shops always had a bakery counter at the front, and their signs, art nouveau gold lettering on white, were a familiar landmark (before the Second World War service was to the table by uniformed waitresses, known as 'Nippies', but after the War the tea shops converted to cafeteria service).

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