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Sunday Journal

Nourishing memories

By ALISON IGLEHART
Published March 13, 2005

They closed the Piccadilly Cafeteria at the mall in Tallahassee last weekend. I wouldn't have known, but my 18-year-old daughter Ali and I met there for lunch as we often do. A sign on the door read "Sorry. Closed."

The lights were dim, and we could make out workers on ladders.

There are other places to eat in the mall - the food court and trendier brass and glass restaurants - but they don't have a history as Piccadilly does, and standing there pulling on the door, I felt locked out of my own home.

I grew up at Morrison's Cafeterias, which Piccadilly bought out a few years ago in what seemed like a futile attempt to stay in business, in Tampa beginning in the 1950s. Eating out every Sunday night seemed like a good way to placate my mom after my dad had played golf all weekend, and it was a good way for my sister and I and our parents to reconnect at the beginning of the week.

The Sunday night dinners were unstoppable. On the way to Morrison's one Sunday evening, my dad backed our fire-engine red 1956 Chevy Impala over my new blond cocker spaniel puppy, my heart of hearts. I remember kicking, screaming, pummeling inside the car as outside, seemingly in slow motion and silence, my dad got a shovel out of the garage and buried Muffin under a chinaberry tree. Then the sound came back on, and he got back in the car and drove us to Morrison's for dinner.

The cafeteria-style lines weren't long at any of the Morrison's, and the steaming Southern buffet food was good and predictable. I always had chopped steak, green beans, macaroni and cheese, a corn stick, and pecan pie. After puberty, when I could no longer pack food away with impunity, I asked my dad if I could lose 5 pounds in two weeks before a dance if I cut out the pie. He said yes, but I didn't. It was my first diet.

When I grew up and went away to college in Tallahassee, I preferred driving downtown to dinner at Morrison's every night with my friend Ann to eating at my sorority house. It felt more like home.

Naturally, my children grew up at Morrison's. It took awhile for them to learn the etiquette of eating out: Be patient; no cutting in lines; no staring at others; eat all you order. They transitioned from blue Jell-O, chicken drumsticks and red soda that they barely touched as children to the artery-clogging value meals that hardly filled my son up as a teenager.

The waiters who got us pats of butter, Heinz 57 Sauce and refills of diet Pepsi became familiar friends who always commented how grownup the children had become. In particular, the longtime cashier Pat, a friendly woman with a beautiful, constant smile, told Ali and me that we reminded her of her son and herself: "buddies," she said.

During the many walks down the darkened corridor leading to the buffet line, I always reached out and touched a particular framed print on one wall. It was of a herd of shaggy cattle drinking water on the banks of a lake with mountains behind. It was silvery and magical and reminded me of a trip our family had made to Scotland before our divorce while we were all close.

Sunrise in the Highlands was the name of the print, and I always told my daughter that one day I would have it. "Maybe so, Mom."

We would read in the paper later that Piccadilly had closed because mall officials decided they could get more rent by turning one outdated, cavernous cafeteria into three more modern, upbeat stores, but on this particular day when the doors to Piccadilly were closed to us for the first time, all we knew was that it was the end of an era. "Where will we meet, Mom?" Ali asked.

"I don't know."

Then she said, "I wonder if they'll let us in."

She banged on the door, and a man in painter's clothes unlocked it.

"Are any of the furnishings for sale?" she asked.

"Guess so."

We walked down the corridor. "How much for this painting?"

"Can't take less than $25. Cash."

We walked out of Piccadilly for the last time with the painting as a memento. It hangs at the foot of my bed now so that I see it first thing in the morning when it reminds me of so many life events: my dad's model and loving consistency, creamy macaroni and cheese, Pat's smile, my daughter's grownup thoughtfulness. We're on the lookout for another good meeting place for lunch, but they are hard to come by these days.

- Alison Iglehart is the Learning Center coordinator at the Tallahassee Community College Writing Center.

[Last modified March 10, 2005, 10:46:02]