Picturing the Past 176: Morgan's Cafeteria

Posted Thursday, January 24, 2013, at 3:30 PM

Morgan's Cafeteria as it appeared in February 1978. (T-G file photo)

A lot of restaurants have operated in East Side Shopping Center (a/k/a Mittwede Shopping center back in the day) over the years.

Here's an inside view of one -- Morgan's Cafeteria -- in February 1978. The photo was shot for an advertisement, which said Herman Morgan had opened the restaurant in the fall of 1977.

Looks like this may have been a lunch crowd. The T-G ran weekly ads featuring restaurants during early 1978, which is why I've posted several pictures of people eating during that time. Plenty of other types of photos to come.

Question for those who remember: What would be considered Shelbyville's first shopping center? Mittwede's? I know Big Springs Shopping Center opened in 1965. I'm thinking the Piggly Wiggly strip (old bowling alley/Shelbyville Super Market) on Union Street, which could be considered a shopping center of sorts, may have been; online real estate records show it was built in 1960 and the Mittwede center may date from some point in the 1950s.

Picturing the Past is featured weekly in this blog. Reader contributions are welcome.

Comments
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I would agree that Mittwedes was probably the first that I can remember.

-- Posted by leeiii on Tue, Jan 29, 2013, at 6:58 PM

David can you put the enlarge icon on here?

-- Posted by kings11 on Sat, Jan 26, 2013, at 1:55 PM

I would say Mittwede...the building itself resembles the armory style like those large stone foundations you still see...I was just holding a conversation about that grocer the other day...my friend said when he was a boy he remembered all the cigarette butts, that they were always sweeping up on the floor and down the aisles with those wide mop brooms....wonder what year Smiths Foodtown over on Derry was established...it was the store Mom would stop at in the mornings for things to put in my first grades lunches in like 1966

-- Posted by chefgrape on Thu, Jan 24, 2013, at 6:49 PM

David Melson

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David Melson is a copy editor and staff writer for the Times-Gazette.

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