Highland Park Cafeteria and the Knox Street Business District
by Paula Bosse
Highland Park Cafeteria (and Delicatessen!)
by Paula Bosse
A quick post today! Above, the much-loved, much-missed Highland Park Cafeteria (3212 Knox), a proud member of the Knox Street Merchants’ Association, the latter of which has drawn up a not-terribly-helpful, pre-Central Expressway map, as seen below, with handy arrows pointing to town.
1932
From a couple of decades later, a matchbook graphic (with a more helpful map), reminding you that the HPC has been “serving particular people since 1925”:
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1939 (North Dallas High School yearbook)
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See other photos of this block in the Flashback Dallas post “Knox Street, Between Cole and Travis.”
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I’m just going to add these things here, because, so far, this is my only post on the HPC, and I might as well keep everything together.
I saw the 1956 ad below, and, even though the photo in the ad is pretty poor quality, it looked like there was a mural there. I’m always interested in murals — most of the time a photo like this is the only chance to see them because they are inevitably painted over or demolished. Anyway… was there a story behind the mural? What did it show?
Dec. 1956
Here it is larger, but the resolution is still low, and the hanging light fixtures directly in front of the mural don’t help:
I found only one mention of a mural at the Highland Park Cafeteria — in this 1950 ad, which mentions “the Williamsburg mural,” as if it were a well-known feature of the restaurant:
April 1950
Then I asked about it on the Flashback Dallas Facebook page — and that led to this muddy screenshot glimpse of the mural from unknown news footage from 1953. Yep, Colonial Williamsburg, above a long planter. I’m not sure why that was immortalized on a wall of the Highland Park Cafeteria, but if anyone was wondering about any sort of HPC mural, these few paragraphs are for you!
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Sources & Notes
Photo from Pinterest.
Knox Street Merchants’ Association ad from the 1932 SMU Rotunda. (That whole area has gotten cramped and is certainly more claustrophobic than when I was a kid, but I’m sure the present-day business owners would probably still echo the 1932 sentiment “Knox Street Business District has them coming from blocks … to shop on Knox.”) (Also, it isn’t often that I see ads mentioning Greenland Hills, the general M Steets area, adjacent to the neighborhood I grew up in.)
Matchbook (detail) from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU Libraries — the full image and more information can be found here.
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Copyright © 2023 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Hi!
I don’t think we ever discussed where we grew up. I also grew up on an “M” street: Monticello: 5222!
Fondly remember Highland Park Pharmacy’s chocolate ice cream soda + Ashburn’s — across the street.
So fun to read all your posts!! K
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Thanks, K! I grew up just north of the official M Streets (just off Greenville Avenue, between McCommas and Mockingbird). I actually never made it to the HPC (!), but I remember going to that Ashburn’s as a kid.
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The Ashburn’s!! Yes, I remember it. Lemon custard ice cream!! Loved it!!!
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Off topic I guess, but I must say that I loved K Callan in “Lou’s & Clark” and also How I Met Your Mother. Didn’t know she grew up here! (And I’m happy to say that I did make it to HPC a few times in 89 & early 90s when I moved here.)
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Yes, she’s great! She made a cameo appearance in the post “Our Lady of Good Counsel, Oak Cliff — 1901-1961” (she was a drama teacher there): https://flashbackdallas.com/2017/10/01/our-lady-of-good-counsel-oak-cliff-1901-1961/
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I grew on Miller Ave. My mother used to work at Red Moon Cafe, which was on the next block from HP Cafeteria. My sister’s first job was at HP cafeteria. We would go to the Ashburn’s for ice cream. Does anyone remember the Red Moon Cafe?
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You can go home again, or maybe not. The beloved Highland Park Cafeteria reopened under new ownership in Casa Linda Plaza. The owners purchased the name and the recipes. I believe some of the employees from the Knox store worked there. I ate there several times before the Pandemic did them in. RIP Highland Park cafeteria. You will be missed.
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Yes, we went there to eat (at Casa Linda) many many times. They even had the presidents. All gone now, thanks COVID.
And I’ve eaten at the old HPC location hundreds or thousands of times. Also the Ashburn’s on Knox.
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I hate pinterest primarily because the poster rarely if ever provides the source for the image the post 😦
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I ate at both locations of HPC in the past.
Don’t remember Ashburn’s HP but my parents grew up in Denison TX (north of Dallas in Grayson County) where Ashburn’s originated. I remember all the many flavors they had to choose from, the vanilla color glazed brick interior and the glass wall that you could see all the big ice cream machines making the frozen treat.
My grandparents knew the Ashburn’s, who also lived in Denison, my Grandmother played bridge with Mrs. Ashburn in the late 40s, 50s & 60s. They also had a store in Sherman TX that looked the same as the Denison one.
Good memories there too
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my family went out to dinner every Saturday night… and it was to HP Cafeteria. line was sooo long i practally memorized the presidents’ names and terms. my parents had comments on most of the Presidents of their time (from the 1920s). HPC’s carrots + raisin salad couldn’t be beat. They served (calves) brains with scrambled eggs; their fried chicken was tops, and their prime rib was as good as Old Warsaw’s. I so remember their coffee angelfood cake, rainbow-striped layered cake, lemon chess pie and fresh fruit pies and cobblers. and when you got to end of the line with your tray full, there were ALWAYS men who carried your tray to your table! who does that anymore! To have a Thanksgiving meal from HPC required ordering at least a month in advance. It just wasn’t a birthday without a full cake from HPC
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Thanks for this, Marty!
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Highland Park cafeteria was the landmark of the area . The Goodman family owned. Best cafeteria ever!
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Michelle gilder
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[…] “HIGHLAND PARK CAFETERIA AND THE KNOX STREET BUSINESS DISTRICT” […]
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Paula is the “G” in the window for Goodman or something else?
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I would guess it’s for “Goodman.”
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