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June 14, 2024 11:38 AM

An Ode to Luby's and the Southern Cafeteria (The Bitter Southerner)
posted by box (39 comments total)

LuAnn Platter with fried fish and tartar sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes with brown gravy. Roll or garlic toast. Lemon ice box pie. Coke.
posted by unknowncommand at 12:11 PM on June 14 [7 favorites]

I've heard of Luby's but even when I was a kid in the early 1980s it was 'old people food', barely flavored and more expensive than the food should be and the rush was at 4:30pm. But I also loved cafeteria restaurant (not elementary school cafeteria food) food like '80s Pizza Hut and the buffets of Golden Corral and CiCis and Furrs, where you would eat enough to be on the verge of throwing up and then back for more out of challenge from a friend or hubris, and there were so many foods my parents didn't know how to make (or didn't like) plus the deserts! They were great. The loss of that hits kinda hard, though they totally still exist. They are just far more expensive.

I don't get why the writer had to diss Chipotle and other fast casual restaurants though - the service is exactly the same, the culinary 'choose your own adventure' spirit is the same. I agree those kinds of places are Luby's children.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:22 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

Where/when I grew up, we had a Morrison's cafeteria in the mall. A Piccadilly too, but I think that was standalone. Honestly didn't know until right now that they were a Southern thing.

It definitely had an "old people" vibe in the late '80s/early '90s but, man. That country steak was good. My grandmother would get liver & onions, which she had a weird relationship with -- it was a dish she remembered being served in her childhood, and I think she kind of hated it but also periodically craved it. She refused to cook it in her own kitchen because of the smell, but would eat it at Morrison's about three times a year. With a sort of determined, begrudging look on her face.
posted by penduluum at 12:25 PM on June 14 [10 favorites]

Oh man, now I want to go back to my childhood and Morrisons and get a chicken fried steak, potatoes, green beans and a piece of pie. (I'm aware now of how horribly racist the founding of Morrison's is, but that cafeteria is a core, core memory of my poor ass Florida upbringing)
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:27 PM on June 14 [3 favorites]

I'm aware now of how horribly racist the founding of Morrison's is

Well fuck, I'm learning all sorts of things about the long-demolished cafeterias of my childhood today.
posted by penduluum at 12:30 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

Where I grew up we had Luby's and Furr's and Piccadilly. They were all pretty much the same. We just went to the one that was closest. I do have a memory similar to penduluum of my grandmother taking me to one of them (can't remember which) after going to the theater to see Camp Nowhere and her getting liver and onions. I was shocked that was a thing.
posted by downtohisturtles at 12:38 PM on June 14

Penduluum, the past is definitely a foreign country, thankfully
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:40 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

When I was a kid, Luby's food was OK, but it was an "old people" restaurant. Now that I am old people, Luby's is a good choice for dining out. Not the cheapest, but the food quality is outstanding here in Austin.

Golden Corral got me thru college. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet and me and my friends could eat a lot. I've since been back and I don't think the food is nearly as good anymore, but maybe my tastes have changed.

I miss Pancho's most of all. It was a Mexican food cafeteria where the food was basic but good. You raised a little flag on the table to let server in the dining room know you wanted more. When me and my friends went, the flag never went down. That one is closed for good - died before 2010,.

There were other buffets, cafeterias or low-cost food joints me and my roommates or classmates went to. I took great pride in being the restaurant discovery guy in college, always on the lookout for low-cost yet filling places to eat. I very much miss those days because I had good dining companions and we were never bored with or tired of eating buffets. We didn't talk business or anything silly like that - we'd discuss DnD or try to write movies or just act goofy.

Now, it's much harder - the people I know all have wives and houses and responsibilities, so we eat out together maybe once or twice a year. And it's only recently that my life stabilized enough to be able to eat at restaurants more often. I wouldn't even know where to find people to do this with, though.

One of the downsides of growing up. My life is like me, old and a bit broken.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 12:43 PM on June 14 [6 favorites]

As a draftee from the Northeast in 1967, I was stationed in Ft. Gordon Ga. We had a day pass at some point and a group of us ventured into Augusta, which was very close. We ended up in Morrison's Cafeteria. It was a wonderful experience. Maybe the best food I'd had in a while. Certainly the very best coconut cake I have ever had to this day. It did strike me that all the clientele were white, but I did not dwell on it. I also vividly remember the servers and kitchen stall were all black, mostly portly women. In impeccable white uniforms. It is a great memory to have during a time of racial upheaval in America
Not in the military though. We were all equal in the service.
posted by Czjewel at 1:14 PM on June 14 [4 favorites]

S&W in Roanoke. Spoonbread! Devilled crab! A big steamer roast of beef sliced to order. Went there for the last time around 1960.
posted by CCBC at 1:36 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

Lubys!
I remember the milk was in a bag I think and it tasted like cream delicious.

sadly, here in Michigan the last Texan has closed.
posted by clavdivs at 1:36 PM on June 14

The other buffets I remember from my childhood were the Fort Hood (now Fort Cavasos) Officers Club Sunday Buffet. and the Enlisted Mess Buffet in a completely different building. I don't know what military food is like anymore, but it was amazing back then. I can see where eating that every day might get a bit old, but as a once-a-week-treat after church, holeeee cats!
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:37 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

Before 9/11 it was possible to visit a government office building just to partake of the cafeteria. The food was pretty good, cheap, and consistent and not many people knew about them. Nowadays either the security is too much of a hassle or it's just not permitted to be on the premises if you don't have some official business to conduct.

Hospitals also usually have decent cafeterias, but post-Covid I personally find it a lot harder to justify going to one if I don't have any other reason to be at the facility.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:39 PM on June 14 [6 favorites]

The IKEA cafeteria exists and it would fulfill all my cafeteria dreams if only it had one of those slow-moving conveyor belts to put your trays on when you're done eating. The cubicles in the dining area where you insert your trays into the racks just don't cut it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:45 PM on June 14 [3 favorites]

I miss the cafeterias of my youth; there aren't any where I am now. Luby's was good, the few times I've been; but being a mid-Atlantic sort I'm partial to the Marriott-owned Hot Shoppes that were all around Washington DC. (There were Hot Shoppes restaurants, as well, with some menu overlap; those were promoted early on as the new kind, the Drive-In, where you ate in your car, if you so desired.) Their cafeterias were great for me while working full-time near one because A) if no line you could be in and eating within a few minutes; and B) I could get just a plate of vegetables and a tasty roll for just a few dollars. Too bad their last chow line shut down in '99.
(1978 TV commercial)
posted by Rash at 2:16 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

My first summer job was at K&W Cafeteria, a Piccadilly competitor. $4.25 an hour, which dates me liek whoa but oh well.

It was good for me to get out of my middle-class gifted-kid bubble. Also, slinging around fifty-pound bags of flour and potatoes put me in the best shape of my entire life.
posted by humbug at 2:39 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

For me, Luby’s will always be the site of the first mass shooting I remember hearing about. Even today, when they happen regularly in all sorts of places, I refuse to go near one.
posted by chainringtattoo at 3:39 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

K&W, Tanglewood Mall, Roanoke, Va—the taste of every summer spent with my maternal grandparents (there were a lot of them).

My paternal grandparents were in Bristol, VA where they had a medieval-themed Piccadilly. It was magical
posted by thivaia at 4:01 PM on June 14 [2 favorites]

For me, Luby’s will always be the site of the first mass shooting I remember hearing about.

Killeen, Texas. During my freshman year at UT I hitched a ride home with my roommate and his buddy who were heading up to DFW for Spring Break. The friend (whom I didn't know) insisted that we stop in Killeen along the way (about an hour north of Austin) and when we pulled off the interstate he directed us to the site of the Luby's, where he got out and took an old-school analog-type selfie in front of the shuttered building. We were weirded out, but not nearly as much as when he revealed his plan to do the same thing in Waco (at the site of the burned down Koresh compound) and then finish up at Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas (the grassy knoll, natch)—his photographic doom trip, of course, having started on campus at the site of the 1963 UT tower massacre.

Needless to say we refused to comply with any further detour requests, and I'm pretty sure neither of us spoke to that guy again after the road trip ended.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:36 PM on June 14 [5 favorites]

If you grew up in central Texas, Luby’s also brings back other memories…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby's_shooting

(Edit: Clearly didn’t read to the end of the comments before posting…)
posted by chasing at 5:30 PM on June 14

My hometown in the South had a Luby's cafeteria. We didn't eat there regularly, as IIRC it was slightly pricier than other restaurants, but the few times I went I do remember the food being really, really good.
posted by zardoz at 5:57 PM on June 14

This piece was awesome: thanks for posting it. It brought back memories of eating at cafeterias with my family after Baptist church services in the sixties and early seventies. I haven't eaten in one in years, and don't plan to soon, but it's a memory to cherish, as it was spent with people who are no longer here. Kudos to box for a great addition to the wonderful experiences I had on this site.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 5:58 PM on June 14 [1 favorite]

But I also loved cafeteria restaurant (not elementary school cafeteria food)

That rectangular elementary school cafeteria pizza is awesome.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:19 PM on June 14 [3 favorites]

Piccadilly was my local, in middle Florida. But I had relatives in Tennessee, and whenever we'd visit them we'd seek out a Duff's. Ohhhhh, Duff's was the stuff.

The "Texas Tornado" will forever be my platonic ideal of a dessert. I don't even remember what it was; I'm not even sure it was the same thing every time. But it was that amazing dessert at Duff's on the way to visit Mamaw and Papaw.
posted by gurple at 10:12 PM on June 14

Penduluum, are we the same person? Your comment about your grandmother and the liver and onions thing was so astute. It was the same with my grandmother, and in fact the very last restaurant meal I had with her before she died featured the liver and onions she ate more in tribute to some food memory she was hanging onto than any real enjoyment of the dish.

I was a Florida dweller with a Luby's, Golden Corral, Piccadilly, and Morrisons nearby, and while we didn't go that often, it was definitely a nostalgic experience, even in the early 80's. There was a Morrisons that was an anchor tenant at the mall where I worked as a teenager. What I always appreciated is how it seemed to attract all walks of life, like the article mentions the way the cafeteria line can be an equalizer. For me, the best part was the freshly baked yeast rolls.
posted by amusebuche at 12:19 AM on June 15 [2 favorites]

Came to read mefites' memories and was not disappointed. Great post!
posted by mumimor at 12:53 AM on June 15

Through my childhood in the 1960s, Sundays meant tuna salad sandwiches after church, eaten while reading the Sunday paper. But occasionally, we'd go to the local cafeteria (not a chain; it was a tiny town). That meant fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, Jell-O cubes, and lemon meringue pie for me! And yes, my mom would get liver and onions sometimes. It was an opportunity to eat things we wouldn't normally have at home.

Decades later I realized that the cafeteria was for the Sunday after my dad got paid, monthly unless there was a cash crunch. That building is now a pawn shop. My kids now have the same fond memories of eating at buffets, where I encouraged them to try new foods to find out what they might like.
posted by Miss Cellania at 2:29 AM on June 15 [4 favorites]

Luby's sounds like my kinda joint
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:50 AM on June 15

We had two Piccadilly locations in Lake Charles, Louisiana, when I was growing up. We went there not-infrequently. My wife is from Indiana, it's one of the growing up points we don't share.
posted by MrGuilt at 7:17 AM on June 15 [1 favorite]

Piccadilly s is where I ate with grandad when we would do gardening and tree planting together

Even the Po Boy shop in his neighborhood had the cafeteria vibe. DiMartinos is still open.
posted by eustatic at 7:31 AM on June 15

For many of us, restaurants are places of healing.

Intentional nod to the etymology of restaurant?
posted by mbrubeck at 7:51 AM on June 15 [1 favorite]

The other buffets I remember from my childhood

Cafeteria ≠ Buffet, let's not muddy these waters. Cafeteria always has trays you push from one end to the other, and you must pay for every item taken. Buffet is all-you-can-eat for a fixed price, ideally with the foods grouped in stations you can approach individually. Some miserly buffet implementations only allow one trip through the line.

(not elementary school cafeteria food)
That rectangular elementary school cafeteria pizza is awesome.

Not at my school, back when Italian cuisine wasn't so well known, where this was made from ground beef and American cheese on a Bisquik crust. The worst.
posted by Rash at 8:04 AM on June 15 [3 favorites]

Cafeteria ≠ Buffet

When I was younger one frequently encountered the word Smorgasbord at self-serve restaurants, but that Swedish term (originally Smörgåsbord) seems to have fallen out of favor in the US, along with cafeterias generally.
posted by Rash at 8:23 AM on June 15 [1 favorite]

Well guess I'm playing "grew up in the South in the 1980s" bingo too.

Morrison's in a shopping mall? Check.
(We also had Po Boys - "I'm Po but I'm Proud" - probably a good thing they're gone, too, just like...)
Rather dismayed at how Morrison's got started, which absolutely skews some childhood memories a la You Can't Go Home Again? Check.

I associate Picadilly's with funerals. On Mom's side of the family, we would all share a meal there after some graveside service or another.
posted by pianoblack at 12:13 PM on June 15 [1 favorite]

Midwesterners had MCL Cafeteria which was actually pretty damn good.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 12:55 PM on June 15 [1 favorite]

A Russian cafeteria
It has aways both seemed funny and sad to me that Russia and the US have so much in common (that we don't really know in the in between countries. I'm not saying we don't have cafeterias, it's just not the same).
posted by mumimor at 1:20 PM on June 15

That brought back memories of eating at Luby's with elderly relatives in the 1970s in east and central Texas.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:36 PM on June 15

I never went to a Luby’s but I miss that Pizza Hut buffet. That was just an amazing time to be a kid. I would go with my best friend’s family and stuff my face with slice after slice until it was time to go.
posted by JakeEXTREME at 6:44 PM on June 15 [1 favorite]

When I was in art school at UT in Austin in the early 70s, we had our pick of Furr's, Wyatt's, Luby's, and Marimont cafeterias. My favourite was Wyatt's at Hancock Center and always enjoyed the squash and cheddar dressing and fried okra. But the best thing for us poor art students was the unlimited amount of free iced tea refills brought around by the coffee and tea cart ladies. We lazed away so many gawd-awful hot summer days drinking tea from just after lunch until dinner service started. We felt munificent leaving the tea ladies a $2 tip.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:05 PM on June 15 [1 favorite]