By Pauline Masson –
Parrett’s Restaurant, with its steeply pitched roof and row of awning adorned windows stood on Osage at Fifth Street for more than thirty years. In the early years gasoline pumps stood on the paved front drive. Parking was in the rear.
The restaurant opened one year after the Pacific stretch of Route 66 opened and three years before the famous road was paved all the way to California.
Known today as the I-44 business loop, Pacific’s leg of the historic highway is arguably one of the best preserved stretches of Route 66 still in its original alignment. The greatest portion of the interstate highway was intentionally replaced by Interstate 44 in the 1960s.
From 1932 to 1966 – from Allenton to Villa Ridge, motorists on Route 66 could find food worth bragging about from at least fifteen eateries.
AlPac Cafe, the American Inn, Butler’s Grill, Cave Restaurant, Cozy Dine, Crest Restaurant, The Diamonds, George’s Tavern, Hilltop Cafe, O.K.Motel and Cafe, Parrett’s Restaurant, Peck’s Farm, Red Cedar Inn, and Twin Bridges Cafe.
There were probably more.
Some, like Parrett’s, installed gas pumps so diners could refuel. Many built a few cabins that invited travelers to stay overnight.
They were called cafe’s, grills, inns, taverns, and restaurants. But they all had one thing in common. Food was cooked to order. McDonalds and KFC were beginning to emerge. But fast food as we know it today was a few year off.
Three of the early restaurants easily qualified for what today’s diners would consider fine dining – Peck’s Farm at Allenton, Red Cedar Inn at Pacific and the Diamonds at Villa Ridge.
Parrett’s Restaurant stood apart due to a creative, ever changing menu, constant advertising that wooed both travelers and local residents and large seating capacity that could accommodate public meetings and wedding receptions.
Three brothers Jim, Tom and Bill Parrett – sons of Missouri Pacific and Frisco Railroad lineman William B. Parrett and his wife Jeannie – built and operated the restaurant.
“Eat Out More Often,” ads that depicted Parrett’s motto ran weekly in the Pacific Transcript.
A basic on the menu was chicken and steak but the brothers offered a mind-numbing variety of dishes before anyone knew what a smorgasbord was.
In 1941 they started selling Pevely Select Ice Cream by the quart and pint. But they also offered a kiddie dessert menu of Cone-o-Plenty, Brown Cows, Eskimo Pies and Cream Koolers for a nickel. Local history buff Mary Beth Schmidt recalls that they also handed out tiny paper pinwheels that delighted youngsters
In September 1944 relying on a recipe of paprika, nutmeg, salt, pepper and traces of garlic, Jim Parrett cooked up a batch of Hungarian Goulash, at 65 cents a plate, that D. B. Ecker, a native of Hungary proclaimed to be as good as any made in his native land.
During Lent, year after year, the brothers went wild with sea food, offering oyster stew, shrimp and oyster cocktails, French fried jumbo shrimp, fried New York oysters, Salmon Steaks, Filet of Sole and Ozark trout.
Breakfast of hotcakes and sausage was offered for 40 cents six days a week. The Restaurant was always closed on Tuesdays.
Once during WWII the popular eatery was shut down when no help could be found, but the restaurant reopened several weeks later promising to again serve its “famous cuisine” with new hours 6 a.m. to 12 midnight.
In the newspaper style of the day the Parrett brothers and their families were constantly in the news. After their father was promoted to chief lineman of the Frisco and moved to Spulpa, Oklahoma their frequent trips to visit him were duly reported.
When Tom and his wife Viola celebrated their wedding annivesary on the Admiral, the occasion was reported. When their daughter Jean Louise and Ray Reidt were married a quarter page article printed the details. When Jean Louise, Ray and their two daughters moved into their new home in Gray Summit, a celebrity photo of the two girls also made the front page of the Transcript.
In the 1940s James Parrett’s wife Virginia brought a bit of fame to the restaurant by competing in Curt Ray’s KMOX radio poetry contest, Rhyme Does Pay. When she won her poems were read on the air. Besides hearing the songs she requested, she received one dollar for each poem she contributed.
Mary Beth Schmidt also recalled that in 1946, when she was two and a half a large crowd assembled at Parrett’s to welcome the boys home from the war. The returning G.I.s then marched down to the Red Cedar where they were fed.
In June 1946, it was reported that “always famous for good food,” Parrett’s was adding air conditioning to improve surroundings for its customers Two years later the restaurant installed an automatic dishwasher, a water heater and Venetian blinds inside the windows to help the trademark awnings protect diner’s from the afternoon sun..
June 1956 When Tom Parrett’s daughter Jean Louise was married a wedding supper was served at the restaurant for all of the bride and grooms friends.
March 1960 a chartered bus for a trip to the Russ David show in St. Louis, Parrett’s was one of four stops where riders could join the tour.
He died in 1951, his funeral service was held in Pacific and he is buried in the Pacific cemetery.
At 9:00 a.m. on August, 1962 everything changed. The new Interstate 44 opened to traffic. In a heartbeat the normal daily traffic on Route 66 evaporated. Some residents said they could tell the exact moment the traffic switched over to the new roadway.
The first thing residents noticed was the absence of the trucks.
“It quieted down quickly,” said Clarence Ward who worked at Bay Oil.
Lee Bay, owner of the station, said he thought the opening of the new highway hit Pacific the hardest since the Missouri Pacific Railroad shops were close in 1922.
The sight of young girl leisurely walking across Highway 66 against the light at Columbus Street in the middle of Saturday afternoon, without a car in sight, seemed to embody the full impact of the change – a change in the way of life of a town, Mr. Bay said.
At Parrett’s Restaurant Bill Parrett’s wife Lizzy said she noticed the change in traffic right away and guessed the exact time the new highway had opened.
Although some of the vintage restaurants continued in business for several years, all eventully closed. Some were demolished but Cave Restaurant found several later uses. It still exists today opposite the caves at Sand Mountain for which it was named. The beloved Red Cedar Inn was purchased by the City of Pacific and now houses the city history museum and visitor center.
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