Here is Herren’s classic sweet roll recipe, which can also be found in Ed Negri’s book, “Herren’s, an Atlanta Landmark: Past, Present & Future.” How significant was the recipe to Herren’s customers over the years? When the restaurant finally closed for good in 1987, the AJC ran the recipe along with the eatery’s obit on the front of the Metro section.
For those who don’t want to make dough, Negri gave his blessing for a substitution of the frozen variety.
Herren’s Sweet Rolls
Makes 60-80 rolls
Prep time: 40 minutes, plus 2 hours-plus for resting
Baking time: 18-20 minutes
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter (cut into slices)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 packages yeast
1/4 cup warm water
4 cups flour, sifted
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
Dough:
Boil milk in a heavy saucepan. Add sliced butter, sugar and salt and set aside to cool. Transfer to electric mixer fit with dough hook. Add yeast to water and stir into milk mixture. Add flour, about half at a time, and beat well (dough can also be mixed by hand). Let rest for 15 minutes. Knead until smooth. Place dough in a buttered bowl, cover with cloth and let rise until double in size, about an hour.
Sugar/cinnamon mixture:
In a bowl, combine the 2 cups sugar and cinnamon. Lightly butter two 13-by-9-inch baking pans and sprinkle with some of the sugar mixture.
Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll out dough on a lightly floured board to about 1/4 inch thick and about 8 inches square. Lightly brush surface with melted butter. Sprinkle sugar mixture generously over entire surface. Starting at one side of the square, roll up dough into tube. Continue rolling back and forth until it’s about 12 inches long. Cut into wheels about 1/2 inch wide and place flat in the pans, so that there’s just a little space between them. Do not overcrowd pan. Brush the tops with butter and sprinkle with sugar mixture. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour to rise.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool 1 minute, then promptly remove rolls to prevent sticking.
During Atlanta’s transformation from Southern city to global player, Herren’s was more than a downtown restaurant, just as its owner, Ed Negri, was more than just a restaurateur. Both played significant roles in city history and neither will soon be forgotten by loyal customers.
Herren’s, with its famous nugget-sized sweet rolls, was one of the original power-lunch locations in Atlanta. A meal at the restaurant on Luckie Street could easily evolve into a who’s who of Atlanta movers and shakers. And Negri, with his thick-rimmed glasses and Johnny Carson-style wardrobe, would be on hand to greet each and every patron.
Historically, Negri’s restaurant was among the first in downtown Atlanta that voluntarily desegregated in 1963. It was also the kick-off site for the campaign to save the Fox Theatre in the ‘70s. Negri himself was involved in the integration of the old Wren’s Nest association and raising money for the restoration of the historic Wesnt End home.
“People called on him because they knew he would do something,” said Ellen Luse, his daughter, who lives in Ellijay. “They knew he would help.”
Edward J. Negri, of Ellijay, died Sunday from a number of health complications. He was 91. A funeral is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at Sandy Springs Chapel Funeral Directors, which is in charge of arrangements. Entombment will follow at Arlington Memorial Park.
In 2005, a history of 84 Luckie St. was published in the form of Negri’s memoirs. “Herren’s: An Atlanta Landmark,” which also includes the restaurant’s sweet roll recipe, also chronicles Negri’s involvement in several community efforts.
While Negri wasn’t a shy man, he was modestly quiet about much of his work to improve race relations in Atlanta, said Bill Balzer, a friend of more 20 years.
“When he was writing his memoirs, Ed tried to keep all of that close to the vest,” he said. “But those of us who were working with him told him those were memorable moments that he should be proud of.”
In a 1991 Atlanta Journal-Constitution story, Negri said he knew integration had to happen after watching a group of construction workers take a lunch break in 1963. He said the white workers could go in a restaurant, but the black workers climbed in the back of a truck. Negri told a reporter he lost $40,000 worth of business the first year he ran his restaurant as an integrated establishment. Despite pickets by the Ku Klux Klan and at least one bomb threat, he did not waiver.
Some 20 years later Negri was contacted by the women of the then-all white Joel Chandler Harris Memorial Association. The group sought his opinion while trying to raise money to restore the Wren’s Nest. But after talking to members, he knew more than the house needed some work. Negri advised the women to open up their membership racially and “let the sun shine in,” he told a reporter in 1990.
After a 47-year run, Negri closed Herren’s and the bar he owned next door in 1987. He opened a restaurant by the same name in Cobb County in 1991, but the location closed two years later and he and his wife, Jane Fuller Negri, moved to Ellijay. Negri’s wife died in 2009, just shy of their 66th wedding anniversary.
Negri, who grew up in Atlanta, was a Boys High alum and earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. But he had not planned to go into the family restaurant business. Negri’s father, Guido, bought the restaurant in 1939 from prizefighter Charlie “Red” Herren and retained the name.
His parents ran the restaurant until 1942, when his father died, leaving business to his wife and the couple’s four children. In 1946 after Negri completed his service in the Army Air Corps, he returned home to help his mother run the restaurant.
“You wouldn’t know from talking to him that he didn’t plan to go into the restaurant business,” Balzer said. “But he did some pretty amazing things in the business.”
In addition to his daughter, Negri is survived by two sons, Steve Negri and Paul Negri, both of Summerville, S.C.; five grandchildren; and 5 great-grandchildren.
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