In the early 1970s, downtown Jonesboro wasn’t dying. By all appearances it was already dead and some parts, like the old Claunch Hotel, were decaying. At the north end of Main Street, parking wasn’t ever a problem because there was nothing except an antique store, Jimmy’s Bike Shop, the Army Surplus Store, a dead hotel and one, tiny, white building mere inches away from the train tracks. If you were a drunk, an insomniac or a writer, you might find yourself there contemplating life in the wee hours of any given morning. That place was The Coffee Cup.
In those days, if you wanted a very early morning cup of coffee, there was one place for it: The Coffee Cup. I believe it was Hillus Pratt who owned and operated the tiny, stereotypical ‘greasy spoon’ for many years. The place where the ‘Cup’ sat isn’t even a place anymore. The Main Street bridge over the train tracks covers the spot where it sat. If there is a downside to the construction of the bridge over the tracks, it is the loss of the Army Surplus store and The Coffee Cup. If any place in Jonesboro deserves a commemorative plaque, it is the Coffee Cup.
The ‘Cup’, like the Grand Canyon, seems to have existed forever. It predated Sambo’s (later Larry’s) at the Indian Mall and the Pancake House on Caraway by decades. Both of those venues came into existence in the 1970s and boasted nice, clean, new buildings but they lacked the patina, the personality and the depth of culture that made the ‘Cup’ the ‘Cup’. The ‘Cup’ was much more than a late night diner. It was a statement of life in Jonesboro.
Like many others my age, I discovered the Coffee Cup when I was in college at ASU. Somehow, to my 19 year old fledgling writer brain, it made sense to go to a rail side ‘diner’ to have a cup of coffee at 2:00AM when I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes, I sat and listened to the conversations going on around me; train men talking train stuff, a couple of intoxicated frat boys babbling about some girl, a solitary stoner drinking a Mountain Dew and staring at a parked train, two weary truckers talking weather, and a very tired nurse holding her cup as if it were the only thing keeping her alive. I listened to and witnessed fragments of lives going on all around me. I had no idea where my life was going, but in hearing of some of these lives I was pretty sure I eliminated a number of life choices.
Mr. Pratt, I was once told, had run the Coffee Cup since retiring from Arkansas State. He had been an English prof. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I do know that he was nice to me, and made a fine, if a little greasy, hamburger. As far as I could tell, he was nice to everyone. He dealt with an interesting slice of Jonesboro. Everyone was welcome. In the rumble and shaking of passing trains, Hillus offered shelter from whatever was life was bringing at that moment. Sometimes, we all just need a place like that.
Today, North Main Street is alive with shops, offices and pubs. It’s a vibrant place that in the 1970s we could never have imagined. The renaissance of North Main has been a resounding success and Jonesboro is so much the better for it. Sadly, sometimes progress buries a past that is worth remembering. In the case of the Coffee Cup, I still remember.
I wish there were a plaque.