Hawcock's Cafe was the kind of
restaurant that can be found today only in old black-and-white movies
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Home of the Fancy
Dan, Cocolate Food, the Rosebud and the Blue Plate Special, Hawcock's Cafe was the
Delmonico's of Monmouth. The parking lot that now occupies the restaurant site makes it
difficult for the uninitiated to imagine the bustling sounds and tempting aromas that for
decades emanated from the building.
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January 19, 1999
Come to Monmouth today, and chances are
you’ll be eating at the city’s old dining standbys, like Meling’s or the Barnstormer or the
Filling Station. Or maybe you’ll head over to Galesburg and dine at a place like the Landmark.
But there was once a time when you didn’t
have to make a choice. "The place to eat," as its slogan accurately professed, was Hawcock’s
Cafe.
"Hawcock’s was a fantastic place; it was the
best restaurant in Monmouth," said Virginia Hillen Carlson ’50, a Monmouth native now living
in Galesburg. "People came from miles around to eat there, especially for Sunday dinner. The
place was packed on Sundays."
Hawcock’s was located in a two-story brick
building on East First Avenue between Main and South First Streets, and for many years was
inextricably tied to Monmouth College. When out-of-town family members came to see their
children at the college, they often ate at Hawcock’s. Fraternities and sororities held their
rush dinners in one of the restaurant’s banquet rooms. Banquets for commencements and
classrooms were held there. And Hawcock’s employed hundreds—if not thousands—of Monmouth
College students over the years, helping them pay their tuition and providing a free square
meal (because Hawcock’s paid college students with a free meal for their first hour of work
instead of a wage, a free meal that was gladly accepted during the depths of the Depression).
Pulling a Sunday morning shift at Hawcock’s was one of the few excuses to get out of attending
chapel.
"We ate there practically every Sunday of my
life when I was growing up and going to college," said Glendora Shaver ’49 of Monmouth. "You
probably knew half the people in there at any time, and the cashiers knew everybody by name.
And their Thousand Island dressing was the best stuff you ever put in your mouth."
Hawcock’s was opened in 1913 by Ernest
Hawcock, a cigar maker and boarding house owner, with his wife, Jennie, and their son, Emory.
It was the kind of restaurant that can be found today only in old black-and-white movies. It
featured a full-service dining room with a delicatessen, a soda fountain, a full line of
salads and desserts, white-aproned servers and busboys, and several big rooms for special
events and Sunday dinner upstairs. The decor was simple but clean, and the sound of dishes
clanking together was constant. It even had a blue plate special that was actually called the
Blue Plate Special.
"A cut of meat with gravy, potatoes, a
vegetable, salad and a drink, all for 35 cents," said Dr. Russell Jensen ’31 of Yucca Valley,
Calif., who worked as a soda jerk at Hawcock’s while a student at MC. "That was quite a deal
back then, 35 cents for a whole meal."
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As epicurean
entrepreneurs, Ernie Hawcock (left) and his son, Emory, were unequalled in the memories of
generations of Monmouth College students. |
Hawcock’s menu was basically meat-and-potatoes fare—things
like the Blue Plate Special, huge steaks and chops, and the Fancy Dan (a burger and fries).
But it had its own trademarks, such as Chocolate Food, an extra-thick milk shake made from
Hawcock’s own homemade ice cream, thickened even further with pecans. Carlson’s favorite
dessert was a scoop of frozen malted milk plopped onto an ice cream cone, which sold for only
a nickel.
"Oh, heaven, it was delicious, and nobody
else ever had it," she said.
Shaver remembers something called a Rosebud,
a paper cupcake cup with a layer of chocolate on the bottom with a scoop of Hawcock’s homemade
ice cream.
"It was delicious," she said.
Although it was open 24 hours, Hawcock’s did
its best business on the weekends. After dances at the armory or the Legion hall, a high
school football game or just about anything else in town, everyone met at Hawcock’s.
"Sometimes, I worked there until after 2 in
the morning, it was so busy," said Jensen, who can remember some weeks when he worked so much
he ate every lunch and dinner at Hawcock’s and still took home a check. "I think about it now
and I wonder when I had the time to attend class."
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Hawcock's was not
your typical small-town cafe, as these spacious interior scenes from a 1940 postcard
clearly attest. |
But Sunday dinners were what made Hawcock’s
famous. Dinners consisted of whole sides of beef and ham, plates full of fried chicken, huge
dollops of mashed potatoes swimming in gravy, piles of steaming vegetables, and bread so fresh
it melted when you touched it.
"People came from everywhere for Sunday
dinner," said Shaver. "They had to open every room they had, there were so many people there.
It really was the best food for miles around."
Ernie Hawcock was also one of Monmouth’s more
interesting characters. He hired hundreds of Monmouth College students over the years to work
as waiters, busboys, cashiers and soda jerks, giving them a chance to work, eat a decent meal,
and pay their tuition.
"Many, many of us Monmouth College graduates
owe a great debt to Ernie Hawcock," said Jensen, who worked at Hawcock’s at various times
between 1927 and 1931. He started working there after he was fired from his job at the soda
fountain of a Monmouth drug store.
"I told the owner of the drug store that I was planning to go
to college, and he didn’t like that much. He’d had some problems with college students
appropriating merchandise, so he didn’t want college students working for him, and he didn’t
want me working for him if I was going to college," Jensen said. "So I immediately walked over
to Hawcock’s and told Ernie that I had experience working in a soda fountain and asked if I
could have a job, and he said ‘sure’ and hired me."
Ernie was also known for occasionally bending
the elbow, and Jensen said it made for some interesting experiences at work.
"He would come into the restaurant after
having imbibed a few and tell all the college help to take off their aprons and go home,"
Jensen said. "Well, we learned that if you took off your apron and went home right away, you
could come back the next day and he’d have forgotten about it. But if you gave him any guff
and resisted in any way, you were done, he didn’t want you back. I still don’t know why he did
that."
Ernie also didn’t mind (too much) if you ate
at Hawcock’s but didn’t actually buy the food you were eating from him.
"My friends and I couldn’t really afford
Hawcock’s so we would buy doughnuts at the Strand Bakery and bring them to Hawcock’s while we
studied algebra there in the afternoon," Carlson said. "He’d give us some funny looks, but he
mostly put up with it because he wanted our parents to come back and eat dinner on Sunday.
"And there was something about the place that
made algebra a community project and easier to study," she said.
Hawcock’s legacy came to an end in the early
1950s. Ernie died and in 1951 Emory decided to get out of the restaurant business. He kept the
bakery, but sold the restaurant and deli to new owners, who renamed it the Marine Room. The
Marine Room, however, was not Hawcock’s.
"It went to hell in a hand-basket after it
was sold," said Shaver. "It was dirty, the food was bad…even the coffee wasn’t very good. It
really went downhill in nothing flat and, as I recall, it didn’t last very long."
By 1955, the Marine Room was out of business,
and Emory had closed the bakery and gone to work as a baker for the old Barnes Bros. grocery
store. The building eventually housed Walter’s Gift Shop from 1956-66, then sat vacant until
it was demolished in 1970. A parking lot sits on the site of the restaurant today.
"The first time I went past that empty lot, I
thought of all the memories going into that building, and that building wasn’t there anymore,"
said Jensen. "I still have the pictures in my mind, though. I was just there yesterday, you
know." --Tom Snee
Check out these other interesting MC
Historical Pages:
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