GREENWOOD, Ind. (AP) - With its fried chicken, pecan pie and Norman Rockwell prints, few things said old-time Greenwood as eloquently as Jonathan Byrd’s Cafeteria.
The Rotary Club met there, as did the Kiwanis and the Chamber of Commerce. Gospel singer Bill Gaither held concerts there.
The 88-foot Byrd tray line officially ends its run Wednesday, but its last big day was Sunday, when hundreds of people - the men in coats and ties, the women in dresses or nice slacks - lined up post-church to what some believe the longest cafeteria line in the nation.
Ginny Byrd, the cafeteria’s owner, manager and widow of its namesake and founder, said efforts were underway to retain the restaurant’s group business. The 43,000-square-foot building will still be available for meetings and banquets, and the kitchen will be used for catering. The restaurant will continue but in greatly pared-down form, with room for just 50 diners instead of 400, and it will be converted to walk-up service.
“Younger people have a negative reaction to cafeterias,” Byrd told The Indianapolis Star (https://indy.st/1j850wK ), “because it reminds them of their high school cafeteria, where the food wasn’t so good.”
The National Restaurant Association actually projects a bump in sales next year for cafeterias, but it’s a tiny bump, at a tenth of a percent, far below the trade group’s projections for restaurants as a whole.
Some chains, such as Chipotle and Qdoba, have borrowed from the cafeteria concept, their customers filing past the food as they order it. But the straight-up cafeteria, even in a time of retro-chic when hipsters wear fedoras and drink Manhattans, “is one of the slower-growing segments,” said restaurant association spokeswoman Christin Fernandez, “and, by locations, one of the smaller segments.”
“Times change; eating habits change,” Byrd said.
Byrd’s big time always was Sunday, late morning to early afternoon - the after-church crowd. It’s a significant crowd in Greenwood, home to some three dozen churches.
A cafeteria can’t live on Sunday alone, but Byrd’s after-church business remained solid, and elderly.
On Sunday, hundreds of septuagenarians and octogenarians grabbed a tray and headed down the line to select their last supper. They were not weepy.
“It’s been a wonderful place to eat,” said Earl Stutsman, a 73-year-old retired financial planner. He went directly to Byrd’s from Victory Baptist Church with his wife, Joy, and brother-in-law, Bob Robinson.
On his tray he’d placed fish, potato salad, green beans, a muffin and a piece of pie the size and shape of a brick (he shared the pie with his wife). “But it’s a matter of dollars and cents, I’m sure. Every business faces it: You either adjust to the times or you go out of business. We’ve known the (Byrd) family since the ’60s, and they’re successful people, and they’re adjusting.”
He said there’s quite a bit of competition for Greenwood’s dining-out dollars, even in the down-home niche. At the next I-65 exit is a Cracker Barrel, and next door to Byrd’s is a Bob Evans.
“We know the story of Jonathan Byrd, and a great story that is,” said Lucile Carpie, 89, who arrived after attending services at Southport Baptist Church and was waiting near the head of the line while her husband, Wes, 90, parked the car. “But everything changes.”
Jonathan Byrd grew up in Greenwood in the restaurant business, as his parents owned and operated several Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. Byrd was a quick study, say people who knew him.
“His IQ was 160,” said Ginny Byrd. His parents sent him to Park School, a private school miles away on Indianapolis’ Northside. It later merged with Tudor Hall to form Park-Tudor. From there Byrd went Ivy League, to Cornell University. He learned all he needed to know in one year, his widow said. “He knew what he wanted; his goal was always to open a cafeteria,” she said, “and he was a confident person.”
The giant cafeteria opened in 1987 on what was then Greenwood’s sparsely populated Eastside and quickly became a Johnson County dining mecca for people looking for country-style food.
Byrd went into catering, too, including at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A race fan, Byrd owned or sponsored several Indy 500 cars, including one driven by Arie Luyendyk in 1996 that looped the oval at 237.498 mph, faster than any other car before or since.
Byrd suffered a stroke in 2004 at age 52 and died five years later.
Locally there remain just five cafeteria operators, though one of them, MCL, is about to expand. It expects to open a new restaurant this spring in Avon, which would give it 19 cafeterias. Still, that’s down from the 22 the chain operated a decade ago.
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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, https://www.indystar.com
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