The Dixie Springs Cafe 1940s

From right to left: Jim Carruth and wife Gussie Godbold Carruth. The two men are car hops Ed and Dave, last names unknown, and the lady, "Shorty" was Elmer Flowers.  Thanks to Paul Ott and Lu Becker for help with identities.  Photo from the Lincoln, Lawrence, Franklin Library Don Jackson Collection.

The Carruths opened what is believed to be the first fast food restaurant in the South, The Coffee Pot, in Brookhaven in the 1920s.  They, along with sons Lester and Bubber, later opened the Dixie Springs Cafe on beautiful Lake Dixie Springs.  This interior shot  was made in the 1940s.

Paul reports that at one point, the family considered removing the oversized coffee pot from the old cafe in Brookhaven and installing it on the roof of this business, but in the long run, decided to leave it in place.  It's a good thing, because the Dixie Springs building burned to the ground in the 1970s, and an historic piece of advertising art, one of the few remaining from that era, would have been lost with it.