A West Plains icon...

Our band played in Mountain Grove last night, and so Pam & I went down early and spent a good part of the day in our home town of West Plains. We put flowers on the family graves... my mother and father, and Papaw and Mamaw Thompson, and Pam's mother & father and Aunt Bertha. Then we took a drive through good ol' WP and ended up at one of our favorite fast food joints in town, Taco Hut! It was Sancho time! That place has been a part of our lives since high school. And that has been a looooong time (ha). It has been in the same location for at least 38 years. Taco Hut was one of the early fast food places to open up in the Parkway Shopping Center, along with Pizza Hut, when WalMart came to town back in the early 70s.
Even though it had been several years since we had been in there, nothing much had changed. And that made me smile just a little bit. We walked up to the counter and ordered two Sanchos each, knowing that it would likely be a while before we got our fix again. While we were waiting for our order, the cashier casually mentioned how busy it had been lately, because of the news. News?... what news? Well... "next Saturday will be our last day". What?! Yup. They are closing the West Plains Taco Hut. Dang. Now, some would probably say that it was long overdue, but in its defense, that place has a certain "well-worn" charm about it. And pretty tasty food. And clearly there are still people out there (like me) who appreaciate that.
As far as I know, the Taco Hut in West Plains, Missouri is the last one on planet earth. There were several scattered around the mid-west back in the day; Springfield had at least two. The last hold-outs were located in WP and Joplin, and sadly, the one in Joplin was destroyed in the horrible tornado that swept through their town this past Spring. So our last Sanchos were good. Before we left we ordered a couple more to go, and as we were leaving I had Pam take my picture out front, for posterity (ha). Hmmmm all that fuss over an old fast food place. Well... yes.