Flomaton Journal ad from the 1930s
Area restaurants have always been places to grab a meal, share fellowship with friends and family and solve the world's problems. Down through the years numerous local establishments each had their own faithful followers who were regular fixtures at lunch, breakfast or supper. One such eating house was Grubbs' Café in the South Flomaton/Century area. An early morning conversation with my mother, Helen McKinley provided much of the information for this story.
The little café set unimposingly along the south bound side of Highway 29. It was located approximately at the location of the Century CVS and the building just to the south of the store. Ms. Grubbs' had a place behind the café where she lived.
Allen Driskell once commented to his daughter Helen, that Mrs. Grubbs at one time ran a boarding house in the Atmore area. He had, on occasion, ate at the boarding house and could attest to high quality of the food. He said Ms. Grubbs would have a spread of food across a long table and patrons helped themselves to the fine servings of vegetables, fried chicken and other commodities available for consumption.
By the mid-1950s, Ms. Grubbs had retired and turned over the restaurant to Ms. Ruby Robinson from Bluff Springs. Yet even after Ms. Robinson took command of the establishment, Ms. Grubbs was a consistent fixture to the building in that she would walk over and visit regularly. By the 1950s she was advanced in age but still interested in the business. Her granddaughter, Dickie Sue Tremer would visit her often. Dickie Sue had two children.
It was during this time my mother, Helen (Driskell) McKinley, came to work at the establishment. "The café had a lot of different types of customers-mill workers, locals and people who worked at Chemstrand and St. Regis would meet up at the parking lot to car pool on to Pensacola and Cantonment," she said.
"The café served vegetable plates for 50 cents when I started there in 1955," said Helen. "I made $3 a day for a twelve-hour shift," she added. "The café had a stucco exterior, plenty of tables, a big window fan (no a/c in those days), a few booths, a juke box, a shuffle board set and a pin ball machine" stated Helen.
The café was open 24 hours a day and the bar crowd would often come into the establishment late at night. There was a pay phone near the front door, occasionally some of the bar crowd would get rowdy and mean with one another and it would be impossible to reach the phone due to the commotion and employees would have to run to Ms. Grubbs' house and call the law.
"Ms. Robinson was a nice lady to have as a boss, she was nice to her workers," said Helen. "She provided transportation to her employees. Ruby's brother Jack and her friend Mr. Wallace Eddins would often pick up the cooks and waitresses and bring them to work and she loved to interact with the customers, her daughter Kitty would often come see her at work," remembered Helen.
"Ruby loved to fish and sometimes she would leave us girls in charge of the café; she'd have me order the food and other provisions while she was fishing," stated Helen. Other employees at the café were Ms. Jackie-Lula Bell-Johnson who was a good cook and a night cook named Mary but I can't remember her last name," stated Helen.
"It was a buy place in those days," stated Helen. "People came and went all day, it had a huge coffee maker that Ms. Ruby had us put two baked egg shells in with the drip-filter because she said it made the coffee taste better," reflected Helen.
"Those were special times and special people; so long ago," concluded Helen. Driving around the area, those far away days of South Flomaton are long gone but the sound of Lefty Frizzel, Hank Williams and Web Pierce on the juke box radiating across a smoke-filled bar room are easy to imagine while riding along Highway 29 on a late, dark night as a gentle rain compels wipers to keep time with an old Johnny Cash song coming across the radio.
Quote of the week: "They were people whose lives were slow, who did not see themselves growing old, or falling sick, or dying, but who disappeared little by little in their own time, turning into memories, mists from other days, until they were absorbed into oblivion," Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera.
Coming soon in 2018: "Shadows and Dust Volume III-Reader Favorites"
