The End of the Line

By CHARLES FERRUZZA

Earlier this year, I wrote a Cafe column

about cafeterias because this unique form of dining out is vanishing. In fact, it’s vanishing a lot faster than I suspected in March, when I paid my last visit to the legendary Jerre Ann’s Cafeteria in St. Joseph – a place that had hardly changed over seven decades of serving home-cooked meals and baked goods.

Jerre Ann’s opened in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression — the boom years for the cafeteria concept, since the meals were inexpensive and tipping wasn’t required. Two St. Joseph sisters, Afra Lineberry and Frances Carolus, opened a neighborhood delicatessen that later became a cafeteria, best-known for its pies, cakes and cinnamon rolls – which were still sold from glass bakery cases near the entrance right up until the place closed on June 30.