Henri Maillard arrived from France in New York in the 1840's and shortly thereafter began operating a confectionary at Broadway and Houston. Malliard's fame spread and he catered Lincoln the inaugural ball and other grand dinners in the Lincoln White House. When he died in 1900, his son Henry Maillard Jr., continued the business. The candy store from the lower level of the Fifth Avenue Hotel to Fifth Avenue and 35th Street.
In 1922 Maillard's moved again, relocating to Madison Avenue and 47th Street and added a men's dining room with a separate entrance (can't have the fellows mingling with the ladies, after all). It was this location that attracted the patronage and praise of restaurateur James Beard. It was also in the 1920's that Maillard's opened a Chicago location on Michigan Avenue.
Like so many venerable American institutions, Maillard's went under during the Great Depression, a victim of belt tightening in hard times. Fred Harvey took over the Chicago location, making it the first non-railroad based Harvey House. Candy's were produced under the Maillard's name until the 1960's but the glitz of the old days had long one.
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