Iconic Bryce’s Cafeteria is closing
Popular eatery has been open for 86 years
After more than 86 years of business, the owners of Bryce’s Cafeteria plan to close it at the end of the month and sell the eatery to a new owner, according to information released on Facebook and from an employee.
The employee, who didn’t want to be identified, confirmed Saturday evening that the regionally popular cafeteria that served generations of customers in and around Texarkana will be closing April 30, at which time the business will be sold.
At presstime, the employee said the owners would release more information about the closing at a later date.
Texarkana resident Bryce Lawrence first opened the cafeteria at 219 N. State Line Ave. in 1931. The business stayed there until February 1989, when it moved to a site near Interstate 30 and Summerhill Road. It’s been there ever since. The cafeteria’s downtown building later became Discovery Place Children’s Museum.
Bryce Lawrence’s family has run the cafeteria since he died about 20 years ago.
Many famous people have passed through its door, including entertainers George Jones and Don Henley. H. Ross Perot brought television journalist Barbara Walters there during his presidential campaign. Other politicians have dined at Bryce’s, including Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
Famous chefs have poked their heads into the kitchen seeking the secrets to the home cooking, and the restaurant has been featured on many cooking shows, the Food Network, national magazines and newspapers.
Dr. Beverly Rowe, professor of anthropology, history and sociology at Texarkana College, in her Still Standing Column, called it a “bona fide Texarkana institution.” Many others have said the same.
In one of her 2003 Texarkana Gazette columns, she talked about its history:
“In 1931, Bryce K. Lawrence opened his cafeteria at 215 Pine St. It was a family-run cafeteria where featured food items resulted from recipes that had been handed down in the Lawrence family. Even though Texarkana was in the midst of the Great Depression when Lawrence opened his cafeteria, his business thrived. … It was THE place to go after church on Sunday, or at noon on Saturday.”
During the 1930s, Texarkana’s Young Women’s Christian Association occupied space on the second floor of this building.
By 1940, Bryce’s was doing a booming business and took over all the space at that address. Photos from that period show lines to get into the restaurant going out the door and down the block.
Bryce K. Lawrence and his wife, Dorothy, had a family of two boys and one girl. Bryce K. Lawrence Jr., Richard Lawrence and Sharon Lawrence were familiar faces in the family business over the years.
Richard died in February after a long illness.
In 1991, Bryce’s downtown building became the property of Texarkana Museums System and was repurposed into a children’s museum.
More than a year earlier, Bryce’s moved to its current spot at 2021 Mall Drive, along Interstate 30, according to a Gazette story. All the old philosophies and recipes went with them.
Advertisement clippings from its early days were positioned near the doorway, harking back to a time when banana cream pudding or carrot and raisin salad could be consumed for a dime.
“We do everything the old-fashioned way,” Richard Lawrence said in the 2003 Gazette article.
“We try to do things like we were taught from our father,” he added, saying many of the dishes are still prepared from recipes as old as the business.
The boys eventually had to adjust some recipes for a more health-conscious clientele. But they always tried to remain true to their many loyal customers.
In a 2015 Gazette interview with Linden’s Henley, the solo artist and former Eagles drummer and front man shared fond childhood memories of Bryce’s Cafeteria, saying it was the best cafeteria he’s been to.
“I’ve never found one better,” he said. (Editor Les Minor contributed information from the Gazette archives to this story.)