What will happen to the last Piccadilly in Florida? Changes for beloved gathering spot
How big was Piccadilly Cafeteria? Bigger than the chain’s hunk of coconut cream pie.
Ask your grandmother.
Piccadilly opened in Baton Rouge in 1932 with one cafeteria and swelled to more than 270 dotting Gulf Coast states when the company gobbled up competitor Morrison’s Cafeterias in 1998. The merger ended in bankruptcy, leaving 41 locations by 2003.
That number is now down to 30, with Piccadilly sites spread across Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia.
And in Florida, as of October, there’s just one remaining Piccadilly to get the Southern-cooking comfort food — and the cafeteria culture that doubles as a community center.
Florida’s last Piccadilly
Florida was down to two Piccadilly cafeterias until the Sept. 26 closing of the location in Jacksonville after more than 50 years. The lone survivor in Florida is at 4500 Hollywood Blvd. in Broward County, between Interstate 95 and Florida’s Turnpike.
This last-remaining Sunshine State Piccadilly is a relative newcomer, housed for 27 years inside a former Olive Garden. But the location has outlived Piccadilly cafeterias in Hialeah, Miami Springs, West Flagler and North Miami, as well as Tampa and Bradenton.
The surviving Hollywood Piccadilly features an unpretentious steam table that an earlier generation feasted from at Morrison’s, David’s and Biscayne cafeterias.
The people in line, then and now, come from all backgrounds. Piccadilly is part of a culture where division disappears. Blue collar. White collar. Retired. Kids. Seniors. Black, white, Hispanic. Everyone in line with one goal: a good meal that won’t clean out the wallet.
What is the future of the Hollywood Piccadilly?
Callie Tucker, director of marketing for Piccadilly Cafeterias, acknowledged the closing of the Jacksonville location in an email to the Miami Herald. She said plans are underway to nourish the sole surviving Florida restaurant with some TLC.
“Our Hollywood, Florida, location opened in 1996 and remains extremely successful to this day. This is all thanks to our loyal guests, that show up daily to enjoy Piccadilly’s home-style southern dining,” Tucker said. “Our company’s long-term plan is to remain in Hollywood proudly serving this community while continually working to remain a guest favorite by implementing all new marketing and promotions paired with a refresh of this physical location in the near future. We look forward to sharing countless more successful years in Florida.”
READ MORE: The only South Florida Piccadilly. Why you should go
What’s on the Piccadilly menu?
Here’s what newcomers and regulars experience: Customers get in a winding line that starts with dessert first. Before you get to the entrees, you can select that huge slice of coconut cream pie under a cumulus cloud of whipped cream.
Oh, there’s also salad, so we move on to the main event.
Chopped steak with gravy. Chicken tenders. Fried shrimp. Baked fish in sauce. A daily chicken special. Southern fried fish. Liver and onions.
Sides beckon behind the steamy windows on the display line — two please, so long as one is the carrot soufflé. This sweet side with a vegetable in its name isn’t so healthy, but so what?
Or pair the $10.99-$12.99 entrees with mac and cheese, okra, jalapeno corn bread, turnip greens, broccoli, corn — and can we mention the carrot soufflé again?
Last-minute decisions at the cafeteria
Picking just the right dish as the crew on the serving line grants your wish with a silver ladle can be as momentous as picking a president. If someone wants to take a little longer to browse the steam table before choosing, that’s OK. No road rage in this lane.
One man at the steam table line wants one of everything. Another wants the gravy from one meat ladled onto another meat. The customers, hungry as they are, stay chill. The workers oblige, and even scoop more than you thought they would.
One conversation with the cafeteria lady and a customer went like this: “You’ll kill me but I will take the fish instead of this liver. Have to eat clean. And I will have some broccoli. Wait, ooh, that’s gas. Broccoli is gas.”
As Jacksonville restaurateur and customer Aljiray Fennell says farewell to Piccadilly with a final “thank you for always filling my belly,” South Florida, for now, will have the cafeteria fish, but maybe not the broccoli.
This story was originally published October 4, 2023 at 9:41 AM.
