For two decades, Huddlestons fed West Vine neighbors

Froe Chips, January/February 2019, Rutherford County Historian Greg Tucker

Huddleston’s Cafe was once located at 210 West Vine Street.

Before World War II, Homer Huddleston and his wife Effie lived in a rented “shotgun house” in Westvue, the working class neighborhood west of the railroad tracks in Murfreesboro. Their home was on the southwest corner of the Mill and Dosie intersection. (See Tucker, Rutherford Reflections, 2014, pages 176-9). Homer was a “laborer,” according to census data.

Soon after the war, however, the couple were living outside the city limits and operating the Huddleston Café at 210 West Vine Street in Murfreesboro. The café prospered offering a standard southern café menu featuring Effie’s “home cooking.” By 1950 the Huddlestons were Murfreesboro homeowners at 465 Jackson Street.

The Huddleston Café was continuously in business through most of 1963. In 1964 the café business was sold to Earnest C. and Mary McPeak and reopened in the same location as McPeak’s Café. The Huddlestons retired and continued to live in their home on Jackson Street.

The McPeaks did not enjoy sustained business success. In 1966 the storefront at 210 West Vine, which was home to a basement gambling venue in the 1920’s and a popular eatery in the 1950’s, was a “thrift store.”

Today, the 210 West Vine address has been changed to 208 West Vine (same building), directly across from the northwest corner of City Hall.

~ Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian

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