- 2 hours ago
Mac and cheese at Matthews Cafeteria
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:01This 70-year-old cafeteria feeds 5,000 people a week.
00:07Michael Green is the third-generation owner of Matthew's Cafeteria in Tucker, Georgia.
00:11Ten pounds of macaroni, which makes 200 servings.
00:14And that's about the smallest batch I'll make.
00:17In the early 1900s, while diners defined the American Northeast,
00:22the South had its own institution, cafeterias.
00:26Anybody of a certain age grew up in the South eating at a cafeteria.
00:32At their peak, thousands operated nationwide,
00:35with chains like Morrison's and Luby's popping up all over the South.
00:38There's actually a section of the phone book for cafeterias.
00:44It's mostly like a Sunday thing.
00:46Get out of church, got the kids, let's go to the cafeteria.
00:50But in the 90s, cafeteria lines started to dry up, and many chains shuttered.
00:55It's not just about food, it's about a community.
00:58For the surviving cafeterias, rising restaurant prices might be sending customers back their way.
01:04As fast food prices keep rising, consumers are looking for better value.
01:09Sit-down restaurants with bigger portions start to make more sense.
01:12I went to Georgia to find out why these restaurants are getting harder to find,
01:16and to learn how one of the state's oldest cafeterias, and one of its newest,
01:20are fighting to keep their hot bars steaming and communities fed.
01:24This is a really, really hard way to make a living.
01:27Let that basket do the work, there you go.
01:33Matthew's Cafeteria opened up in Tucker, Georgia in 1955.
01:38At the time, the Atlanta suburb was becoming a manufacturing hub,
01:41and workers stopped in on their lunch breaks.
01:44To the basement.
01:46Michael is still serving them many of his grandfather's original dishes.
01:50We don't even write down recipes, there's nothing written down here.
01:53Like these biscuits that Chef Maria has hand mixed and cut for 24 years.
01:59The mac and cheese was Michael's grandmother's recipe.
02:02Her macaroni was spongy, it was casserole-like.
02:06This is gonna be a bit overcooked in some people's eyes, but that's how my grandmother did it.
02:12Al dente is not a Southern American word.
02:15We are not cooking this al dente.
02:17Ten pounds of pasta, eight pounds of cheese, which is the perfect ratio, I think.
02:24Looks like a lot of milk, but this is a lot of macaroni.
02:28You gotta learn to be ambidextrous in the kitchen or you will wear one arm out, I can tell you
02:32that.
02:32On the other side of the kitchen, chefs tackle a crowd favorite, the chicken and dumplings.
02:37You're cutting them now and letting them toughen up just a tad.
02:43It just gives them a little more resiliency when they go into the boiling broth.
02:48Michael's juggling a massive scale with a hundred items on the menu each week.
02:53He also has to choose dishes that'll stay tasty for hours on a steam table, a classic cafeteria feature.
03:00Take this rice, for example.
03:03Michael steam cooks it like you would pasta with extra water.
03:06That way it stays fluffy.
03:11Michael's also working within the confines of a cramped, nearly century-old building.
03:16It was not built to be a restaurant.
03:17Some of my relatives lived here at one point, and then it was a general store.
03:23Instead of running food up the narrow steps of the restaurant,
03:26chefs rely on this old dumbwaiter from the 1950s.
03:28And the dumbwaiter was not electric at first.
03:31It had counterweights.
03:33It was done by hand.
03:34It's better than walking it up the steps.
03:37But even with this old layout, the staff has to keep the restaurant running for 14 hours a day,
03:43from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
03:45They open early for the factory workers who start at 6.
03:48It fills a void for people.
03:51You know, nowhere else to get breakfast.
03:52See y'all come here often?
03:54Yeah.
03:55It's been going a little 50 years.
03:5850 years.
03:58Even a little breakfast club.
04:00I love it.
04:01Unlike buffets, which usually charge a flat fee for unlimited food, cafeterias charge per item.
04:08As you slide your tray down, you pick what you want and pay for what's on your plate.
04:12Look at this spread.
04:15What's really impressive is all of this was like less than $15.
04:19Look at this.
04:20You have the nice crust on the outside, but it's soft and pillowy on the inside.
04:24I mean, come on.
04:25It's so good.
04:27Mmm.
04:29This is like a three-handed job.
04:32Mmm.
04:33And some biscuits and gravy.
04:35Oh my God, look at the sheen on that.
04:40Mmm.
04:41That biscuit stayed crunchy.
04:43I feel like they've figured out the science of still being yummy, but sitting out.
04:49I used to stop at cafeterias on road trips when I was a kid, and this feels very fun.
04:54Very familiar and very homey.
04:56Even though I just got here, I just feel sort of like wrapped up in this coziness of a giant
05:00biscuit sandwich and a big pile of sausage gravy.
05:08But the day is just getting started.
05:11In three hours, hundreds of people will show up for the lunch rush.
05:14And Matthew's changes its menu every single day.
05:18On the Tuesday we visited, Micah was finishing up the barbecue pork, slow cooked, out back,
05:24for 12 hours.
05:25Almost falling apart.
05:27Almost.
05:27That is some good barbecue right there.
05:30This is for you.
05:31These are the best little bits.
05:33I don't know why they always stick to the grate.
05:37Wow.
05:38The sugar almost gets candy-like on the outside.
05:41That's a beautiful touch to it.
05:44Friday is for his wife Jenna's chicken and rice casserole.
05:47It was so good that we added it to the menu and I took it and multiplied it by a
05:52thousand.
05:53I mean literally.
05:54Michael actually met his wife here 14 years ago during a lunch service.
05:58On the other side of that pole is a plaque that says where Jenna met Michael.
06:03And that's where I proposed to her.
06:06But it's not just his wife who has kept Michael coming back all these years.
06:10I hated this place as a kid.
06:12I didn't want to go to work in the summer.
06:15My friends weren't working.
06:16They were at the pool.
06:18And then you get old enough to listen to people when they tell you how special,
06:24for whatever reason, this place is to them.
06:27And now I get it.
06:29Gotta get a spoon.
06:31I love to cook.
06:32The steam, the sounds, the smells, the energy.
06:36And the people I get to work with every day.
06:38I love these guys.
06:40I do.
06:41Hey.
06:42What's up?
06:43Love you, man.
06:46I was even more impressed with the lunch menu.
06:50Can you hear that?
06:52Nice and crispy.
06:56The chicken is still tender inside.
06:58Next up, I'm gonna try these chicken and dumplings.
07:04Oh, that's so cozy.
07:06And they let the dumplings firm up so that there's a nice kind of like chew to them.
07:10My favorite thing on the table?
07:12Oh.
07:13That mac and cheese.
07:16Yeah.
07:18Slaps.
07:19That's like childhood mac and cheese.
07:21I can see why this is one of their crowd favorites.
07:24Both of these trays for myself and my camera guy were $47, including desserts.
07:29Look at that crust.
07:31Look at that crust.
07:33And then strawberry shortcake.
07:37That's really good.
07:38It's pretty impressive that so much of this is made from scratch.
07:41Because it's not like that big of a kitchen, you know?
07:44And I wasn't the only one enjoying it.
07:47Retired police officer Mike Reagan comes in with all of his friends from the force every week.
07:51It's kind of like a community gathering place in Tucker.
07:54Tucker's still got that small family feel.
07:57Like small town.
07:58And when you come in here and eating, a lot of people, you might not sit and talk to them,
08:02but they always say hey.
08:03They always say hi.
08:05That community feel is part of why cafeterias were so successful to begin with.
08:11But they didn't start in the south.
08:14The earliest recorded one popped up in New York City in 1885, right across from the stock exchange.
08:20Brokers ate and then paid for their food on the honor system.
08:24In the 1890s, at an exposition in Chicago, the restaurant style was named cafeterias,
08:30borrowing the Spanish word for coffee shop, cafeterias.
08:34In 1906, the first California cafeteria chain Boo Brothers opened up.
08:39By 1927, it had six locations in Los Angeles and was nicknamed the Cafeteria Trail.
08:46Then the cafeterias started taking over the southern U.S.
08:49They fit the old fashioned home style cooking already preferred in the region.
08:55Their audience only grew after World War II, as the south urbanized around textile mills, car and airplane factories, and
09:01shipyards.
09:04Cafeterias became a go-to for workers who needed cheap filling meals on tight schedules.
09:10The food was on full display, cutting down on customer complaints.
09:14Things were cooked in bulk to bring down the cost per serving.
09:17And the line was set up so high margin sides like desserts and salads came first, encouraging customers to load
09:25up their trays before reaching lower margin main dishes like meats.
09:30Morrison's opened up in 1920 and would become one of the biggest cafeteria chains in America.
09:35Followed by chains like S&S in Georgia, K&W in North Carolina, Piccadilly in Louisiana, and Luby's in Texas.
09:44On Sundays, southern cafeterias filled up with families after church.
09:48Get out of church, got the kids, let's go to the cafeteria.
09:52By the 1960s, cafeterias were all over malls, downtowns, and shopping centers in the south.
10:00But there was tension brewing.
10:04Cafeterias were segregated in the Jim Crow South.
10:09In 1961, protesters staged a sit-in at the Anamod cafeteria in Oklahoma City.
10:16In 1964, dozens of black Tennesseans were arrested for protesting a whites-only Morrisons in Nashville.
10:24The chain didn't change its whites-only policy until after the Civil Rights Act was passed, banning segregation in public
10:31spaces.
10:34Soon, cafeterias faced big competition from fast food.
10:38By the mid-70s, McDonald's and Burger King had hundreds of locations.
10:43They were cheaper than a cafeteria line, and they had convenient drive-throughs.
10:48And they have buying power. They can offer a sausage biscuit for a dollar.
10:52I can't. It's like the mom-and-pop hardware store competing with Home Depot.
10:57Cafeterias also felt pressure from casual dining chains like Chili's and Applebee's,
11:01which expanded rapidly in suburban America in the 80s and 90s.
11:06Then, mall traffic began to slow, drying up the dependable crowds that had sustained cafeterias for decades.
11:13Many cafeterias tried to cut costs, switching from fresh ingredients to canned and frozen ones.
11:18But they lost loyal customers when the quality worsened.
11:22Business was so tough that big cafeteria chains began consolidating and closing.
11:28Piccadilly bought Morrisons.
11:29In 2020, Luby's almost went under, but a new owner managed to save 32 locations.
11:36In 2022, Piccadilly bought another chain, K&W.
11:39But three years later, it shut down all the remaining locations.
11:44Piccadilly itself went from 270 locations in 1998 to fewer than 30 today.
11:50The family, everything, yeah, it's tradition. All that is gone. All that went out the window.
11:57It breaks my heart.
11:58It's sad. It's sad to see things fade into history.
12:03But a newer cafeteria down the road from Matthews is proving they're not all dinosaurs.
12:08When a nearby S&S cafeteria shuttered after 43 years in business, Lewis Squires bought its old equipment.
12:16I was so heartbroken by it, I thought I could rescue it.
12:20He opened the Magnolia Room featuring the refurbished cafeteria line in 2017.
12:25It has higher prices, a more upscale feel than Matthews, and a waitstaff.
12:30Plus, it's not open for breakfast.
12:33But the kitchen was still buzzing on a cold Wednesday morning.
12:37You feel the pressure? Okay.
12:40All right, three minutes on that lasagna.
12:43And head chef Deborah Tardif is at the helm of it all.
12:47All right, Cirilla, we got all the bread out?
12:49Yeah, it's full.
12:50It's full, thank you, baby. Thank you so much.
12:53Green beans, pinto beans, collard greens, beets.
12:57I started cooking when I was nine years old.
13:00So this is my passion. It comes just like walking now.
13:04She has to keep everyone in line, because together, they'll make 37 dishes for lunch in just three hours.
13:10Nobody want to come in a restaurant with cold food.
13:14I want them running, and as you can see, they run. They run.
13:18On one end of the kitchen, cooks chop all the fresh produce for the salad bar and stewed vegetables.
13:24Two people work the fryers, dropping an okra and chicken.
13:29Deborah's right behind them, singing out instructions.
13:31Now shake it. Yep, let that basket do the work. There you go. Voila.
13:38Over in the bakery section, chefs whip up cornbreads and pies, piled high with meringue.
13:45This kitchen might look like a well-oiled machine, but before opening the Magnolia Room,
13:50Louis didn't have any restaurant experience. He worked in Macy's.
13:54I don't know how to cook. I mean, I don't like cooking. I don't, you know, I don't enjoy it.
14:00But when he noticed that a nearby S&S was selling its old equipment at a discount, he got into
14:05the restaurant business.
14:06It was a fire sale. I got all the equipment for $24,000, so it was a steal.
14:13To duplicate it today would be about $200,000.
14:17And it was a huge gamble.
14:19Foolish looking back on it, I didn't realize how horribly complex restaurants were.
14:27So, the journey all along, at least in the early days, was, should I keep doing this or not?
14:33You know, should I just fold?
14:35He chose a shuttered dinner theater as the site of his new restaurant because of its size.
14:40It was hard to find a building that could accommodate a stainless steel 50-foot serving line.
14:49It is two 25-foot long sections.
14:53And the poor thing arrived and it was just sitting on its side like two sections of a beach whale.
15:01It broke my heart, but now look at it. It's back alive.
15:08Since Lewis didn't know how to run a cafeteria, he hired people who did.
15:12It's just an entirely different way of feeding the customer and serving the customer.
15:18And you need people that have had that experience.
15:23He convinced Debra to leave her post at an S&S in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she says the food
15:29quality had dipped.
15:30They changed so much, they got away from the old tradition stuff.
15:34Nobody didn't want that. Less guests coming in, less hours.
15:39Lewis found server Sherelle Summers at another S&S in Atlanta.
15:43And waitress Tanisha Williams from a Piccadilly in Atlanta, where she worked for 23 years.
15:49You were going to get my tray? It's pretty heavy, though.
15:52Oh, I know. I can help.
15:54Look at her. Doesn't even flinch.
15:56No, not at all.
15:58Yeah, this is a happy place to be. You know I love it here.
16:02Yes, ma'am.
16:04Some of Lewis' chefs even brought old recipes from former chains, but upgraded them with fresh ingredients.
16:11Like the pies got real vanilla instead of artificial, and butter in place of margarine.
16:16That's partly why Lewis moved away from the old, cheaper cafeteria model, and started charging more.
16:24His main dishes, on average, are 28% more expensive than those at Matthew's.
16:30Despite the cost, the Magnolia Room has thrived, Lewis says, because it went back to what made the chains so
16:35successful in the first place.
16:37Really yummy food.
16:38All of these cafeterias used to have exceptionally good food on the level of what we're serving here, but they
16:47abandon it.
16:48But I will always raise the price before I cut the quality.
16:53And he says people are willing to pay.
16:56How often do you come in here?
16:58Six to seven times a week.
17:00And, well, with the price of groceries, I don't see much cost difference.
17:05The Magnolia Room's customers aren't the only ones doing the math.
17:08When prices rise, people want to feel like going out to eat is worth it.
17:11In 2025, U.S. fast food prices climbed faster than casual sit-down restaurants.
17:17In a K-shaped economy, lower-income consumers are pulling back on spending, not eating out as much, and higher
17:23-income consumers are still going out.
17:25But if they're realizing that they're spending $12 to $15 at the drive-thru, they're starting to think,
17:30I could just go someplace and sit down and have a better experience for the same amount of money.
17:35The brands that are offering bigger portions at reasonable prices, like Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Chili's, they're seeing traffic growth.
17:44But traditional fast food giants like Wendy's and McDonald's just aren't seeing the same momentum.
17:48And that shift is happening across the industry, not just at casual chains.
17:53For the Magnolia Room, that shift is showing up at the register.
17:56They do all the work. All I have to do is enjoy it.
18:00Nothing in here is canned. Nothing saw the inside of a freezer.
18:05Most of the comments we get are that it's an excellent value because it really is the same level of
18:14freshness and quality that a fine-dining restaurant would order.
18:19Just like the cafeterias of the 50s, Lewis' kitchen makes everything from scratch.
18:24People can't believe we still do that.
18:26We run a very good food cost, we run a good labor cost, and everybody's happy.
18:34So this notion that it can't be done in today's world because of the high expense of labor is not
18:41what I've found.
18:42But were Lewis' claims of quality legit?
18:46I put them to the test. First, with the fried chicken.
18:49That is some crispy skin.
18:55Mmm. I don't understand how they fired that a few hours ago, yet it's still so crispy and so juicy.
19:02That chicken was an absolute standout.
19:04And look at the size of this piece. I mean, that's a whole chicken.
19:08Look at the size of my head.
19:09We got the chicken pot pie with the biscuit on top.
19:14That's a power move. Instead of dumplings, putting a giant biscuit on top.
19:18Look at that crab-stuffed catfish.
19:21Ooh!
19:25Whoa!
19:26You get hit with those, like, really strong creole spices at the front.
19:29And then that briny note in the back.
19:32Off a cafeteria line!
19:34Are you kidding me?
19:36You can try fried okra.
19:39Mmm.
19:41The only thing Matthew's might have won on was the mac and cheese.
19:44It doesn't really have the cream sauce that we saw at Matthew's.
19:48This is more like souffle, almost.
19:52Considering how much butter we saw go on top, it's kind of silly.
19:55I'm putting more on, but, you know, it went in the south.
20:00That's that melt-in-your-mouth pillowiness.
20:02Oh, it's so yummy.
20:05And these sweet potato bowls were a surprise home run.
20:09Marshmallow, sweet potato, saltines, fried together.
20:13And a bunch of sugar.
20:16Mmm.
20:17I don't think I've ever tasted anything like that.
20:18That feels special.
20:20So the Magnolia Room's food was delicious.
20:24But it also reimagined what a cafeteria could be,
20:27and rebuilt a community around its food.
20:30One that I was immediately scooped up into.
20:32It's just like that you would've cooked it at home.
20:35Yeah.
20:36But you don't have to cook it.
20:37You just come here and let them cook it.
20:38You just come here.
20:39I met this couple, Mama Yula and her husband, Mr. Maddox, in line.
20:44And they invited me to sit with them.
20:45Real old antique.
20:47I doubt it.
20:4878 and 75.
20:51I'm telling you.
20:53I'm telling you, Southern food makes everyone look young, I think.
20:58Want any gravy on your drink?
21:00When you come in here, it's warm and it's welcome.
21:03Yeah.
21:03It's like a family.
21:05It just feels like home.
21:07Yeah.
21:07It really feels like home.
21:09You know how me and you, man.
21:10Yeah.
21:10Just like we were knowing each other, what, how long?
21:14I've known you my whole life, actually.
21:17I'm from the country.
21:18This is just like some food that you would take off the stove, put on your table and your family
21:25will eat.
21:25And that's what this restaurant is all about.
21:28This is the caring place.
21:29And you can be my daughter, too, and you can be my son, too.
21:33I'd be honored.
21:36Waitresses hugged the folks who stopped in and knew their names and orders by heart.
21:41It is wealthy people.
21:43It is low-income people.
21:46It is all racial groups.
21:50It is old and it is young.
21:52I think this food is a great equalizer.
21:55I wondered if Lewis could rescue other failing cafeteria chain locations.
22:00There's a few K&W's that have seemed empty at this point.
22:03I'm just salivating.
22:05It's just driving me crazy.
22:06I'm like, these would be so successful as a Magnolia room.
22:11Yeah, so you never know.
22:14But if this is the only one, this is the only one.
22:17It does sort of make it special.
22:21Michael doesn't have plans to duplicate Matthew's cafeteria either.
22:25He's focusing on the community that's already there.
22:28Relying largely on hospitality manager Candace Caswell to make people feel at home.
22:34I caught Candace making little table bouquets with Holly from her yard.
22:38A lot of our customers have been coming here forever and some of them are alone.
22:44Yeah.
22:45And they don't have anybody, so it just kind of makes for a homier atmosphere.
22:51That's really sweet for you to even think about that.
22:53Aww.
22:55Well, I love people and you know I have a gisty gab, Abby.
23:02Matthew's frozen in time has long known that it needs to be ready to serve whoever shows up hungry.
23:18You know, everything seems in popular culture to come full circle.
23:22Bell bottoms become cool again, haircuts become cool again, and then luckily for us, I think we've hung around long
23:29enough to where maybe the way we used to do things is cool again.
23:36Magnolia Room and Matthew's have held onto something the rest of the restaurant industry is clamoring for.
23:41The idea that a meal can still be communal.
23:45And for the people who keep coming back, that's worth standing in line for.
23:49Don't give up on us. Don't give up on us.
23:52If you're ever within range of Tucker, Georgia, and you want to see the way it used to be done
23:59in the South and it's still being done right.
24:02Live, come on.
24:08We'll get a little break.
24:11All right.
Comments