Yerington Monday: John’s Fine Food

Yerington Monday: John’s Fine Food

Every time I return home to Yerington and take a drive down Main Street, I feel a big hole in my heart when I pass the building that use to be John’s Fine Food.  It is now an insurance company.  It looks so dead, so plain, so blah.  As a kid in Yerington, John’s was a hub of the community.  It was full of life and fun.  It was breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It was where all the businessmen came for a coffee break.  It was where single miners, construction workers and cowboys came for dinner.  If they came for breakfast, we would make them a bag lunch and put it on their tab. Yes, regulars could charge their meals.  It was where families would go for special occasions or a weekend dinner treat.

John’s was like the Boys & Girls Club of our day.  As teenagers we would go for coffee and sweet rolls before school.  At lunch we walked to John’s for a lunch of hamburgers and homemade french fries. On Friday & Saturday nights we would hangout and watch our friends drag Main Street.  It was the “place” to go after the game. We often danced to the jukebox.  There was two pinball machines, if you got bored.  And if you were 21, there were two slot machines that were “tight as hell”.  Yes, John’s was a happening place in those days.  Now it sits like a tombstone on top of a grave.

When I was fifteen, I lied and told John I was sixteen (as that was the legal as to hire minors) when I applied for a position as a dishwasher.  I worked for him until the day before I left for college in September 1966.  By the time I was really sixteen, I was waiting tables.  I worked lunch hour and after school.  In the summers, I worked full time.  Both my brothers, Dan and Dave, worked for John as dishwashers as well.

 
Scookie John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Shannon, my boyfriend John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1965

Boys at the pinball machines John's Cafe Yerington NV Aug 1965

Sue Johnson, Red Hatton , Sue Hatton , Gayle, Chuck Parrot John's Cafe Yerington NV 1964

Qwen & Sue Hatton John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1965

Sue Hatton & Tom Rodney John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1965

Gayle B, Chere Barnett and Cindy Franks John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Band Boys of the Centurions from Reno with Wesley Gilbert of the Quids John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1965

Waitress John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Chere Brown & Linda Steel horsing around John's Cafe Yerington NV 1964

Waitress John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1964

Sharon Andrews John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Louise, the cook John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Sue Hatton, Mike, Richard John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Naomi, John's wife John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Ron Carey teasing a customer John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Terry & ?? John's Cafe Yerington NV Aug 1964

Terri John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1964

Terry and Chere Brown having pie fight, John's Cafe Yerington, NV 1965

John Young, owner John's Cafe Yerington NV Sept 1964

Mary Hood & Gale B, John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1964

Linda Steele, John's Cafe Yerington NV Oct 1964

Waitress John's Cafe Yerington NV Sept 1964

Chere Barnett John's Cafe Yerington, NV 1964

Gayle & Sookie John's Cafe Yerington NV March 1965

John Young & Terry John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Steady Customer and Chere Barnett,  John's Cafe Yerington, Nevada 1965

Louise, the cook John's Cafe Yerington NV 1965

Dawnette Humes and me John's Cafe Yerington, Nevada August 1964

There was a few months of unemployment from John’s, when he fired me for asking for a raise.  I wrote about this on my blog on how I was fired and rehired. See below.

How The Flu Helped Get Me To College

http://thecrackerladyshouse.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-flu-helped-get-me-to-college.html

When I first started washing dishes for John, this song was played on the jukebox almost hourly.  Everytime I hear it I am transported to the back kitchen of John’s, where I was either washing dishes or peeling a 100-lb sack of potatoes for those famous french fries.

Dusty Springfield - Wishin & Hopin 1964

https://youtu.be/gAdTsAKvVTU