Bon Appétit

The success of Gourmet magazine during the 1940s and early 1950s created an audience for other food-related magazines. In about 1955, two retired advertising executives in Chicago began sponsoring a magazine called Bon Appétit, which at first was a liquor store giveaway. It became a bimonthly magazine in December 1956, when it was picked up by American Colortype in Chicago. Over the next decade, the magazine changed hands several times. M. Frank Jones, an advertising executive in Kansas City, picked up the magazine in 1965. He targeted practical, medium-income housewives, who wanted to practice upscale cooking in their kitchens. He continued serving as editor until he sold the magazine to the Pillsbury Company in 1970, although he remained as editor until 1980. Five years later, Pillsbury sold the magazine for $85,000 to Cleon T. “Bud” Knapp of Knapp Communications in Los Angeles. Knapp already owned Architectural Digest, which was edited by Paige Rense. Knapp asked Rense to edit their newly acquired magazine. They converted the magazine from a giveaway to subscription-based and upgraded its frequency to a monthly. To distinguish Bon Appétit from Gourmet, Rense created a more user-friendly magazine, which included sections such as “Too Busy to Cook,” which focused on the needs of busy housewives. Knapp pumped millions into promoting Bon Appétit, and it caught on quickly. By 1980, the magazine had a circulation of 1.1 million subscribers—more than any other food magazine at that time.