A 6 panel fold out dinner menu from Steve's Circle Cafe at the Circle Waco Texas. Circa 1950's. On Highway 81. Measures about 7 1/4" x 12 1/2" when closed. With choices like Fried Tenderloin of Trout Sandwich, Chicken Fried Steak, Liverwurst Sandwich and more. Known as The Seafood Palace Away from the Sea.
Due to the size limitations of my scanner, the entire menu may not show in some of the scans.
CHATHAM’S, STEVE’S, AND GREECE!
If you were in Waco in the late 1950’s, 1960s, or early 1970s, you knew exactly where the well-loved “Chatham’s Drive-In” was. It was on the corner of Waco Drive and Valley Mills Drive, right under the huge neon fish that was flopping in the frying pan! But did you know that the story of Chatham’s began in…Greece?!?!
In 1929, a young Greek man named Steve Lucas came to the United States by boat, leaving his family and his homeland of Greece far behind. He settled in Waco, and began working at Chris’s Café on Austin Avenue as a cook. By 1933, with hard work and determination, he was able to open a restaurant way out in the country… by Waco’s brand-new traffic Circle, which was constructed the same year. Steve’s Café was located at 2710 LaSalle, next to the Circle Courts Motel. Steve’s Café was the first restaurant on the Circle, and it was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In those days, LaSalle headed south toward Temple, as Highway 81, and Steve was intent on serving the best to those highway travelers, as well as Wacoans. The business grew, and by 1946, he expanded his restaurant, including a new “Waconian Dining Room” and began serving Kansas City corn-fed beef and fresh gulf sea foods.
Steve’s Café, sometimes called “Steve’s Circle Café” always had a winning softball team. In 1946, their team, led by Cecil Ellis, were the 1946 Softball Champions of Waco.
The business continued to grow, and on December 7, 1953, Steve Lucas opened another location on the corner of Waco Drive and Valley Mills Drive, which was then called Highway 6. Again, he built in an area where there were few businesses. In 1953, there was no Westview Village, Golden Triangle or any of the other businesses we knew later in the 1960s. There was a new store called Cogdell’s at New Road and Valley Mills, which had opened just a year earlier. And beyond that, the old Westview Drive-In Theater on the corner of Valley Mills Drive and Sanger.
Steve Lucas and Walter Scarborough, a 56-year-old retired plumber who had owned Dixie Plumbing Company and then became a builder, built the building at 4216 West Waco Drive.
In an October 14, 1953 article in the Waco Tribune Herald entitled “Eye-Catching Signs One of Many Features of New Drive-In Café in Waco”, we are told, in great detail, of the amazing signs we all came to love. Carroll Phillips, of Phillips Signs and Neon tells us, “The sign atop the drive-in has a man in a motor boat fishing with a rod in a rippling lake. He hooks a large fish, and the rod goes up and down seven times before the fish flops out of the water. Phillips describes this sign as just scenery, no words on it at all. It’s 38 feet long and 14 feet high. The double sign facing both ways on Highway 6 and Waco Drive cooks the 15-foot fish from the lake. It features a skillet 28 feet wide, and rides 32 feet into the sky…The fish in the highway sign flops out of the skillet, like it’s turning over—four times. Then it flops into the skillet, a charcoal fire lights up, the word “Steve’s” flashes on, the fish’s tail wiggles and begins to simmer. Phillips said the signs, with 2500 lineal feet of tubing and four colors, are costing around $7,000...”.
Steve’s Drive-In had a 35’ x 35’ dining room, that could seat 60 customers. There were 45 covered parking spaces for those who preferred to be served in their cars, and an additional 100 parking spaces on the property.
By 1955, Steve Lucas had sold his new drive-in to Ford Chatham and C.L. Chatham. It was a very popular place for friends, dates and families. It was known for steak baskets, fish baskets, and fried chicken baskets. It also had a very imaginative drink menu…The Purple Cow, for instance! And the drinks came complete with plastic monkeys, giraffes, mermaids, and an assortment of other trinkets that adorned the glasses.
In 1973, the Chatham family put their very popular drive-in on the market, although they continued operating. As late as 1976, they were still advertising for kitchen help and carhops. They must have sold it in late 1976, because there is no mention of Chatham’s in the newspapers after September, 1976.
Although it’s gone, it lives on in the memories of those who got to experience it first-hand! Today, U-Haul of Waco operates out of the building that Steve and Walter built at 4216 West Waco Drive.
(Randall Scott, February 17, 2020)
in very good condition with cover edge foxing
