Driving back to Kearney last week from Abiquiu, New Mexico, I made a critical stop in Last Chance, Colorado. Sixty-two years ago this month, my family stopped for supper at Joe’s Cafe in Last Chance.
Memories of Joe’s Cafe are razor-sharp, especially on this Father’s Day weekend. That year, my father drove us — my mother, my three siblings and me — 2,000 miles each way from our home in Cleveland to see friends in Denver.
It was our first vacation west of the Mississippi River, and I slurped it up like a bottle of Coke. As we hurried across Highway 36 in Kansas, I stared out the window at the endless wheatfields tickling that vast blue sky on those flat-as-a-cookie-sheet Great Plains. I’d never seen such wheatfields or such flat land.
Mary Jane Skala
We’d spent the previous night in St. Joseph, Missouri, and had gotten a late start due to a pesky car issue. We’d spent all afternoon crossing the Great Plains, and by 6 p.m., we were hungry. There are few towns and even fewer places to eat in eastern Colorado, so when we found Joe’s Cafe in Last Chance, we stopped.
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Last week, as I hurried through unincorporated Last Chance as I headed north on Highway 71 from Ordway to Brush, I remembered Joe’s Cafe. I had to find it.
At the junction of Highway 36 and Highway 71, I spotted it. I turned east and drove past three houses to a neglected, boarded-up restaurant. A crumbling sign said Dairy King, but I knew that this place had been Joe’s Cafe in its former life.
I pulled into the empty parking lot and got out of the car. Memories shimmered around me like the 104-degree afternoon sun. This was where we stopped for supper that night 62 years ago.
This one-story cafe was painted a dusty yellow. Its door was as brown as a Snickers bar. Next to the door were two large rectangular picture windows with brown shutters on either side. Brown shutters hung along a large window on the west side of the building, too. A brown trash can stood beside the front door.
I walked closer. An east wing had been added to the building since I was last there, but the wing’s three windows were boarded up. I gazed up and studied that “Dairy King” sign. The “King” word was difficult to read because the sign had been aged by sun and wind and was partly broken, but it seemed plausible that this place had sold ice cream decades after my family had enjoyed dinner there.
Most prominent was a sign with big red letters: “For sale.”
As I stood in that parking lot, I heard nothing but the wind. I recalled stopping for supper there. We were smitten by this tiny cafe in a hamlet swallowed up by prairie. I ordered a plain hamburger, French fries and a chocolate milk shake. My siblings did, too. Then, happy, our bellies full, we got back into the car and drove west to Denver. As the sun sank in the western horizon, my mother joyfully spotted the distant Rockies. She was as giddy as Lewis and Clark had been when they finally sighted the Pacific Ocean. We didn’t get to Denver until 11 p.m.
Now, 62 years later, I wonder what will happen to Joe’s Cafe. Last Chance is unincorporated and so named because it offered the last chance for travelers to buy fuel and provisions. Wikipedia said five tornadoes poked around town in 1993 and ravaged several farms nearby. It also said a wildfire started by sparks from a passing motorist’s flat tire destroyed most of the town in 2012, but I don’t remember anything there except Joe’s Cafe.
I don’t know why ordinary vacation memories become so treasured, or why Joe’s Cafe was as prized on that trip as driving up Pike’s Peak, or getting up at dawn to fry bacon and eggs in the mountains, or the hailstorm and backyard fireworks on the Fourth of July. But it was.
Last Saturday night, I happily texted photos of Joe’s Cafe to my siblings. Then I continued my journey back to Kearney.
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June 19, 2022 at 10:00PM
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Tasty memories of Joe's Cafe 62 years later | Columnists | kearneyhub.com - Kearney Hub
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