Arthur Dick Singleton was the first person to put a cup of coffee at the centre of the hospitality offering. He did this with his coffee stand, part of the hospitality hall, at the 1939–1940 Centennial Exhibition held in Wellington. The photographs show New Zealanders flocking for a freshly roasted cup of pure coffee. The Centennial Exhibition finished in May 1940. By then Singleton had seen the eagerness of New Zealanders to drink fresh coffee, prompting him to open the French Maid Coffee House on Lambton Quay.
During the Second World War and the years that followed, until its closure in 1951, the French Maid Coffee House served the best coffee in town. It also held regular art exhibitions. A.D. Singleton was not only ‘the man who taught us how coffee should taste’, but also without meaning to, he became an exhibitor of a new type of art. In doing so he became the most important art curator of the 1940s, a significant decade in New Zealand’s art history.
Before working in hospitality and coffee Singleton had been a builder, initially completing an apprenticeship with his father. He left the building industry and for eight years he sold the International University Society’s sets of books and encyclopedias.
By the late 1930s, while living in Sydney, he became interested in drinking pure coffee and, in the process, how to make it. He got to know the people at Griffiths, who had been Australian importers of tea and coffee since the early 1900s. They roasted green coffee beans for national distribution. With this experience, and a growing sense of how to blend and taste coffee, he gained enough confidence to put together a coffee stand at the 1939–1940 Centennial Exhibition.
Among his circle of friends there were sceptics who thought it would be difficult to sell a cup of pure fresh coffee to New Zealanders. Roasting the best green beans he could source would be more expensive compared to the adulterated coffee which made up most of the market. Another world war was imminent and people were concerned about their spending, but he went ahead anyway.
An early view of the French Maid Coffee House at the time when the coffee roaster was still on the premises. The person sitting at the back, proud, contented and alone, enjoying a quiet cigarette, is A.D. Singleton.
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Among his circle of friends there were sceptics who thought it would be difficult to sell a cup of pure fresh coffee to New Zealanders. Roasting the best green beans he could source would be more expensive compared to the adulterated coffee which made up most of the market. Another world war was imminent and people were concerned about their spending, but he went ahead anyway.
The coffee stall at the exhibition was not financially successful because of the concession structure. However, what Singleton discovered was that people loved the coffee and he sold over 200,000 cups during the six months he was there. This gave him the assurance that a market for fresh coffee existed and he opened the French Maid Coffee House at 356 Lambton Quay. It was open from 9am to 6pm Monday to Thursday and on Friday till 7pm. The French Maid also served Ceylon Broken Orange Pekoe tea.
During the French Maid’s first years Singleton roasted the coffee on the premises. After a time it became obvious the hospitality part of the business required more space. He shifted his sacks of coffee and roaster along with his administration to Featherston Street. This allowed for more tables and chairs to be set up at the French Maid. Unfortunately after 10 years this small, popular, energetic coffee house closed as the landlord wanted to demolish the building.
Without a lease Arthur Singleton must have been wondering what to do next. He ended up by shifting his roastery to a factory site in Jackson Street, Petone, where he began to develop the wholesale side of the business. He supplied freshly roasted beans to coffee shops like the Buttery, the Rosanna Lounge, the Waldorf and Smiths Tearooms in Lower Hutt. He followed his technical side, roasting away at the factory. Singleton did not commit to hospitality again, except for one-off promotional events, such as successive Winter Shows held for three weeks every August school holidays or when in 1961 he held a French Maid Coffee House dinner in the dining room of Kirkcaldie and Stains’ department store.
This is an excerpt from the book ‘Coffee Houses of Wellington 1939 – 1979’. It can be bought online here