Toddle House

Toddle House was a national quick service restaurant chain in the United States, which specialized in breakfast but was open 24/7. Much of their business was takeout.

The precursor to Toddle House was started in the late 1920s, by J.C. Stedman, a lumberman from Houston, Texas, seeking to use leftover building supplies. Stedman persuaded the owners of Britling Cafeteria, a Memphis, Tennessee-based restaurant that started a few years earlier, to build his restaurants. Shortly thereafter, Stedman was approached by a successful Memphis businessman named James Frederick "Fred" Smith, who was looking for a new investment since the Greyhound Corporation had bought a controlling interest in the Smith Motor Coach Company he founded 1931, and was renamed as the Dixie Greyhound Lines. (Smith was the father of Frederick Wallace Smith, who later founded FedEx.)

In 1932, Smith became the president of the National Toddle House System, Inc. By the 1950s, Toddle House had more than 200 locations in almost 90 cities.

In 1962, Toddle House was purchased by Dobbs Houses, a competitor that also operated Steak 'n Egg Kitchen, and the franchise was allowed to decline. In 1980, Carson Pirie Scott borrowed $108 million to buy Dobbs Houses. In January 1988, Carson Pirie Scott sold Steak 'n Egg Kitchen and Toddle House to Diversified Hospitality Group of Milford, Connecticut. The chain has since been liquidated.

Each outlet was built to the same plan, and contained no tables, but merely a short counter with a row of ten stools. Payment was on the honor system: customers deposited their checks with the correct amount in a glass box by the door on the way out.

The menu featured breakfast all day. Lunch and dinner entrées included soups and salads, various sandwiches, such as toasted cheese and roast beef. The cheeseburger was billed on the menu as the "world's best hamburger." Desserts included various pies, pecan roll and black-bottom pie.

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