MidPoint Café, Adrian, TX
Sign for the MidPoint Café and Gift Shop, 305 Historic Route 66, Adrian, Texas. The Midpoint Café, a restaurant, souvenir and antique shop, bills itself as geographically the midway point between Los Angeles and Chicago on historic Route 66. Signage in Adrian proudly declares a 1139-mile distance to each original US 66 endpoint; the café's slogan is "when you're here, you're halfway there". The café, built in 1928 and expanded in 1947, operated 24 hours a day during Route 66's heyday and is the oldest continuously operating Route 66 café between Amarillo, Texas and Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Its origins can be traced to a one-room, dirt-floor brick café known as Zella's, built by Jeannie VanderWort and leased to Zella Crim. The restaurant changed hands several times. Dub Edmunds and Jesse Fincher acquired the property in 1956, operating it and an adjacent filling station as Jesse's Café until 1976. It became well known for its hot, fresh home-made pies. The café was sold in 1976 to Terry and Peggy Creitz as Peggy's Café; a subsequent owner changed the name to Rachel's. Fran Houser purchased the business, naming it the Adrian Café, in 1990. The Midpoint Café's current name and identity were adopted in 1995 on the advice of travel author and US Route 66 Association founder Tom Snyder. They began selling antiques on consignment by 1997 alongside its "nostalgia food" menu of breakfasts, hamburgers, and the homemade desserts which it calls "Ugly Crust Pies". The term "ugly crust" was coined by Joann Harwell, Midpoint Café's pastry chef, who would create various tasty, freshly baked pies (pecan, chocolate chip, apple, lemon meringue, and chocolate) using her grandmother's recipe, only to lament that the crusts looked better when her grandmother had made the same pies years ago.
MidPoint Café, Adrian, TX
Sign for the MidPoint Café and Gift Shop, 305 Historic Route 66, Adrian, Texas. The Midpoint Café, a restaurant, souvenir and antique shop, bills itself as geographically the midway point between Los Angeles and Chicago on historic Route 66. Signage in Adrian proudly declares a 1139-mile distance to each original US 66 endpoint; the café's slogan is "when you're here, you're halfway there". The café, built in 1928 and expanded in 1947, operated 24 hours a day during Route 66's heyday and is the oldest continuously operating Route 66 café between Amarillo, Texas and Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Its origins can be traced to a one-room, dirt-floor brick café known as Zella's, built by Jeannie VanderWort and leased to Zella Crim. The restaurant changed hands several times. Dub Edmunds and Jesse Fincher acquired the property in 1956, operating it and an adjacent filling station as Jesse's Café until 1976. It became well known for its hot, fresh home-made pies. The café was sold in 1976 to Terry and Peggy Creitz as Peggy's Café; a subsequent owner changed the name to Rachel's. Fran Houser purchased the business, naming it the Adrian Café, in 1990. The Midpoint Café's current name and identity were adopted in 1995 on the advice of travel author and US Route 66 Association founder Tom Snyder. They began selling antiques on consignment by 1997 alongside its "nostalgia food" menu of breakfasts, hamburgers, and the homemade desserts which it calls "Ugly Crust Pies". The term "ugly crust" was coined by Joann Harwell, Midpoint Café's pastry chef, who would create various tasty, freshly baked pies (pecan, chocolate chip, apple, lemon meringue, and chocolate) using her grandmother's recipe, only to lament that the crusts looked better when her grandmother had made the same pies years ago.