About us

Main Street Cafe is a relaxed restaurant in the center of Memphis, Missouri. Run by Jeanne and Dave Snodgrass, it’s on the town square, looking out onto the beautiful Scotland County Courthouse. You’re welcome here for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or just to hang out with coffee, cheesecake and a friend or two. We have free WiFi, diaper-changing facilities, and toys for the kids. You’ll get great service from our friendly staff and quality food from our regular menu. Our weekend specials often provide fancier items you may not expect to get in a small town.

We make most of our food from scratch using fresh, local ingredients where possible. Our soups are all homemade, as are our marinara and alfredo pasta sauces, coleslaw, sausage gravy and corned beef hash and more. We prefer to purchase ingredients that haven’t been sprayed or traveled far: they’re fresher, tastier and have less impact on the environment. We serve fair-trade coffee from Equal Exchange along with the usual range of soft drinks.

Memphis residents occasionally supply their own produce to the cafe. We’ve had locally-grown apples, peaches, cherries, blackberries and gooseberries in our desserts, and use local sweetcorn, lettuces and herbs when we can. We are often able to offer local hamburger.

In addition we offer catering services outside the restaurant, for example partnering with The Willows to offer fine dining. We can also provide deli sandwiches, chicken and burgers for more family-style events. We can provide catering for birthday and other parties in the restaurant.

About the building

The building is from the late 1800s, and was originally a clothes store. We’ve stripped it back to the brick walls, and exposed the original high ceiling. Prior to a fire on March 31, 2009 the restrooms were where the dressing rooms were, and we built the office space around the site of the three-sided mirrors. Behind a bunch of wallboard we found a number of old clothing advertisements, a couple of which were cleaned and framed. We’ve put a few antiques from Dave’s family on display, before the fire this included his grandmother's radio, a glass washboard and butter churn. With the rebuilding and renovation after the fire we worked to recover as much as possible and to restore the cozy feel.

How we got started

Jeanne and Dave moved to Memphis from Albuquerque in 2007. Dave had spent his childhood in the area, and we now live with our three young daughters in his grandmother’s old house. We originally came back because we wanted to do some organic farming and gardening on the land attached to the house. The first summer went pretty well, and we thought it would be great to be able to use the produce locally, instead of having to drive out of town to sell it. There wasn't as much demand directly in Memphis, but with the restaurant we’re trying to change that.

When we first moved to town, we were remodeling our kitchen and were eating out a lot, and while we were pretty happy overall with the restaurants in town, there were some things we really wanted that just weren’t available. We couldn’t get the type of salads, soups, and pasta we wanted, for example. We soon realized that with our extensive restaurant experience, instead of griping about the situation we could actually do something about it. Other people in town seemed interested in the type of thing we were planning to offer: more fresh foods, more things made on the premises, less fried food. So we decided to go for it!

Dave has a culinary degree from Indian Hills Community College in Iowa, and for nearly twenty years has worked all over the country in pretty much every aspect of food service. He’s done healthcare facilities, fine dining, catering, you name it. He’s worked with a lot of different chefs, and managed a number of kitchens.

Jeanne has been waiting tables and managing front-of-house in a range of places since she started her college degree, from greasy spoons to four-star hotels. She has a graduate degree in modern dance: she’s performed and choreographed, and taught at university. She now teaches classes here in Memphis, including ballet, modern and creative movement for kids.

We’ve had a lot of support from the community, who want to support local businesses. And we’re keeping up the work on our garden. We hope to use our produce in the cafe, along with more and more local and organic ingredients.

The best thing about running the cafe is getting to meet everyone in town, and really feeling part of a community. Memphis has been really welcoming, and it’s been great!

We look forward to seeing you here sometime soon.

Website maintained by Jeanne Snodgrass and Toby Champion