Lunch At The Depot, Lattimore, NC

The Depot Cafe operated by Wanda Jones Nixon and her husband Rick.

I was in Lattimore yesterday meeting some of my former classmates to plan a reunion for our Lattimore High School class and ate lunch at The Depot.  This little cafe with the spiffy red canopy, red framed doors, and pretty red and white umbrellas out front is in an old building that was never the town depot but one that housed the J. W. Martin General Store.  (It is across from the old Seaboard railroad track though.)

The Depot Cafe.

The store was next door to the Milling Company that Martin ran from the mid 1940s to the mid 1990s.  It was here that the farmers of the area brought in their grain to be milled and where they bought everything from groceries to livestock feed to hardware. It was a gathering place for the men of the neighborhood, and one of my Lattimore friends that I ran into at the Depot said that his Dad would go to the store every day  to have a "coca-cola" that back then cost  a nickle.

The old Martin Milling Company, Lattimore, NC

The restaurant is colorfully decorated with railroad memorabilia and copies of old photographs taken around town in years past.  Breakfast and lunch are served Monday through Friday,  and lunch is served on Sundays.  The menu offers a lot of choices.  The food is good, like home-cooked, and the prices reasonable.  I was pleasantly surprised by the large crowd there, but I was there at the peak lunch hour. The word is that there are long lines on Sundays.  I'll have to remember to go early on Sundays.

Railroad memorabilia.

Railroad memorabilia and view of little private dining room in back.

I don't remember the old store, but I have  fond memories of the little town of Lattimore where I went to school.  It's quite nostalgic to go back.