MEMORY OF WIMPY'S: CAPE GIRARDEAU INSTITUTION TO CLOSE AFTER 55 YEARS

By Sam Blackwell

Bill Lewis says he knows how Jesus felt.

"Everybody's coming in for the last supper."

That's because Wimpy's, a Cape Girardeau institution for 55 years, will serve its last hamburger Wednesday. The day will close a chapter in many Cape Girardeans histories, leaving only memories of a place and time not unlike those depicted in the film "American Graffiti."

Bill's brother Freeman bought a hamburger stand called Wimpy's in 1942. Located on the northwest corner of Kingshighway and Cape Rock Drive, Wimpy's sold its specialty for 7 cents apiece.

The now 74-year-old Freeman smiles at astonished reactions to the low cost. "It only cost us a cent and a half," he says.

The Lewises' parents, Fred and Ethyl, ran the stand while Freeman and his brother Frank were off fighting World War II. Soon after they returned, the business moved across the street into a building on the northeast corner of Kingshighway and Cape Rock Drive.

The Lewises, joined by youngest brother Bill, put a drive-in on one side and a grocery on the other. They installed an ice cream machine in 1952, but Wimpy's was known for its hamburgers, which were made from meat ground in its butcher shop.

Cape Girardeau barber Bill Sisco still rhapsodizes over the taste of a relish-laden Wimpy's hamburger. "I don't know if anybody knows what was in it. And it was wrapped in the thinnest paper. They did things their own way," he said.

Sisco still eats at Wimpy's but not as often as he did growing up in the 1940s and 1950s.

"Every night the whole family went to Wimpy's," he said. "We had hamburgers, fries and a Coke every night."

Sisco's parents, Bill and Pansy, were served by curb hops in the car while the kids -- Billy, Bob and Joanie -- dined inside.

Wimpy's was a family restaurant until the 1950s, when teen-agers with cars turned a hamburger, fries and a Coke into a meal at lunchtime and into a social event any other time.

"At 11 a.m., the cooks, waiters and curb hops would be doing nothing," Bill Lewis recalls. "At 11:04 a.m. there would be 25 kids here."

At one time, Wimpy's sold more hamburgers locally than McDonald's, Bill says. "But it didn't take them long to catch up."

Through the '50s and well into the '60s, Wimpy's was the logical place to find Cape Girardeau's teen-agers at lunch, after school or at night.

"It was almost as much a part of growing up as going to school was," says Judy Naeter, who graduated from Central High School in 1957.

She went to Wimpy's at least once a week, which made her a regular customer in those days. "Back in the '50s, we didn't go out every night. We went out on weekends," she said.

"We'd go to Teen Town or a show, then go to Wimpy's for a burger and fries and a piece of pie."

She fondly remembers Wimpy's cream pies, which until about 1960 were made by Ethyl Lewis herself.

Naeter ate at Wimpy's recently and became nostalgic looking at the old photographs on the wall.

"I guess the '50s really are over," she said.

The lure of a Wimpy's hamburger cost Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle the only spanking his mother ever gave him.

He was in the first grade, getting ready to go to a birthday party. Suddenly young Swingle, dressed in a Palladin outfit, decided to take his 3-year-old sister Melinda to Wimpy's "for a bite."

"Unfortunately, I neglected to tell my mother," Swingle says.

They lived only a few blocks away but had to walk across Kingshighway, which then was Cape Girardeau's two-lane version of I-55.

Brother and sister didn't have any money when they arrived at Wimpy's but were given hamburgers on credit. They made it back across the highway before their mother caught up with them.

"I received a spanking I remember to this day," he says.

But Swingle, whose family moved out of town just as he became a teen-ager, still has fond memories of Wimpy's as the place he spent hours poring over comic books and discovered cherry phosphates.

At the high point of Wimpy's popularity in the 1960s, every parking space on the lot was occupied by nightfall. Trouble was, the customers didn't stay in their cars.

"They were all trying to figure out how to pick up a girl and leave their car there," Bill said.

Those who did leave often felt the need to peel out. Eventually policemen were hired to oversee the lot.

Meanwhile, McDonald's was becoming popular with children, and the Wimpy's building needed repairs.

In 1973, the Lewises sold the land to a bank. Freeman and Frank got out of the business, while Bill moved the restaurant to South Kingshighway. He switched to serving breakfast and lunch only, and his clientele aged considerably.

In the intervening years, Wimpy's became more of a town meeting place where the day's headlines would be discussed over coffee beginning promptly at 5 a.m.

"A lot of people say, If you don't know what's going on, go down to Wimpy's," 80-year-old Frank says.

The Lewis family moved to Cape Girardeau from a farm in Iron County. An older brother, Francis, never joined the business, preferring stocks. Francis convinced his parents to buy a house here. They lived next door to Wimpy's.

Today, the rock wall the Lewis family built is all that remains of the Wimpy's many Cape Girardeans know from their teen years.

Bill is going out of business partly because he's old enough -- 68 -- to get away with it, but mostly because his landlord sold the property, which will become a used car lot.

For them, this is the end of another tradition. The family has had lunch together every Saturday at the restaurant for the past 20 years. And it's been burgers and fries and Cokes all around.

They were all there -- Bill and his wife Florence, Frank and his wife Irene, and Freeman and his wife Alice -- along with more Lewises and friends for a so long-to-Wimpy's party Saturday afternoon (see related story).

At one time, Wimpy's provided a livelihood for four families. The Lewises reckon they made a good living and fed most of Cape Girardeau through the years.

Bill nodded in the direction of a middle-aged customer. "The first time I waited on her was when her mother was pregnant with her," he said.