Couple reflects on Hallmark Restaurant where they first met amid closure

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) – Neighborhood associates were stunned to see a sign on the doorway at Hallmark’s Restaurant in Killeen saying it will be closed for renovations. Workforce tell KWTX the rework will conclusion the Hallmark era and subsequently change the name and menu.

“A very little piece of my coronary heart form of dropped,” David Guthrie Junior mentioned when he located out the Killeen staple was closing. He was hired as a bust boy there in his initially ever occupation back again in the 80′s.

The cafe experienced been open up for more than 40 yrs, at its peak underneath Jerry D Henderson for the duration of a time when number of places to eat sat together Central Texas Expressway.

A indicator on the doorway study Monday “We will be closing Monday June 13, 2022 for renovations until finally even further observe… thank you”. Inside of the lights were being off and bins loaded with aprons could be found on some of the tables.

Inhabitants knew the diner for its all-you-can-consume Catfish times and 24 hrs of support.

“Everyone went there especially after bars and nightclubs closed,” Mercedes McDowell remembered. “I never know where by anyone will go late at evening now.”

She and her relatives now stay in Kansas, but say Hallmark was an integral portion of her lifestyle in Killeen.

“I met my partner on March 31st, 2016. I was there drinking coffee [at Hallmark] in the center of the night drawing. He had just been stationed at Fort Hood times earlier and sat in a booth close to me. Sooner or later he bought bored or curious or something and he kind of appeared about to see what I was drawing. We started off conversing,” McDowell remembers.

“We sat and drank our black espresso, I handed him a blank piece of paper and we sat there drawing into the night,” she described.

She states they were mates for a when ahead of they started out dating and inevitably finding married, but by way of it all in no way forgot the spot exactly where they very first became acquainted.

“It became our day night time thing,” McDowell reported.

They sooner or later introduced their little ones there, and went for all of life’s particular instances.

“The working day he would deploy we would go there and then when he would get back again he would go home, shower and we would operate around there for meal,” she said.

She suggests the wait around team at Hallmark was usually terrific, she claims she took marriage ceremony pics for just one of the waitresses and remembers an additional who often teased her and her spouse on Sundays when they arrived in in Seattle Seahawks gear.

Even their young children bought to know the cafe and its team and patrons well. She states her son often bought a stuffed animal from one more cafe typical throughout visits.

Although they are now stationed in Kansas, McDowell states they repeated Central Texas all the time, and when they do they generally make a end at Hallmark.

“I just would like we experienced a lot more observe that it was closing, we would have occur again a single past time.” She says she hopes to get 1 of the menus from the cafe.

She has a assortment of Polaroid photographs from their visits to the cafe that she wants to display screen along with the menu.

Her tale and connection to the restaurant is not one of a kind to her relatives.

Just after information of the dining places closure distribute on social media dozens mirrored on fond recollections there.

Jodi Ross was just at Hallmark a handful of weeks ago, and hadn’t even recognized it shut.

“My father was a extended time resident of Killeen and Harker Heights,” she claimed. “He passed away final 12 months at the age of 94 from Alzheimer’s and Hallmark was his favourite place to go. Me and my sister-in-regulation have a tendency to go there from time to time just in remembrance of my daddy,” Ross defined.

“Its stunning, its like the conclude of an period. I remember Hallmark currently being a position for all people,” Guthrie Jr. reported.

McDowell and Guthrie say right after Henderson died the restaurant experienced its ups and downs. They say the top quality of the food stuff modified and slowly shed some of its polularity.

Still, they just can’t believe that the Killeen staple will before long be absent.

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