The company has its origins with the sons of shipbuilder Austin Hills (1823–1905), who was born in Rockland, Maine, and ran a business in California building clipper ships.

[2][3][4] In 1898, Edward Norton, of New York, was granted a United States patent on a vacuum process for canning foods, subsequently applied to coffee.

[7] In 1926 Hills Bros. moved its operations to 2 Harrison Street in San Francisco,[2] a Romanesque revival building on the Embarcadero designed by George W. Kelham that is now a city landmark.

[8] The roasting operations once made the surrounding area smell like coffee, according to a Key System "March of Progress" style public service film from 1945.

[15] Noted character actor John Zaremba was the primary commercial spokesperson for Hills Brothers in the 1970s and early 1980s, portraying a fictional coffee bean buyer.