How Luby’s Really Began

Luby’s Cafeterias and Dallas go together like peas and carrots. While Luby’s own company history calls San Antonio the birthplace of the Company in 1945, the reality is that there were Luby’s Cafeterias all over the Dallas area for years before then. So why the disconnect? Not surprisingly, the answer lies in family dynamics.

Earl Emerson Luby was the youngest of six boys (Frank, Clyde, George, Mack, Ralph, and Earl) and four girls (Opal, Hazel, Helen, and Lola) born and raised in Matoon, Illinois by Joseph E. and Jerusa Paradise Rosanna (Rose) Luby. Joseph’s brother, Andrew, had one son, Harry, and two daughters. Harry and his sisters were very close to their first cousins.

Shortly after the turn of the last century, Harry and his wife Julia were living in Decatur, Illinois, where they owned and operated a millinery store. One day Harry found himself in Chicago eating at The Dairy Lunch, a diner. It was there he had the vision of opening lunch spots in the nation’s growing downtowns. Harry and Julia soon moved to Springfield, Missouri to open the “New England Dairy Lunch” in 1911. They opened a second location in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1914. His cousin, Earl joined him in 1919 and they soon expanded the business into Oklahoma, with a third location in Muskogee. It was the Muskogee location that first used the family name – Luby’s. It was also the first location to catch the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan didn’t like the fact that the cousins employed African American workers to cook and serve. Harry and Earl were told to fire their workers and join the Klan. The cousins didn’t share those views and decided to close the location at a loss and leave town. Next stop: Dallas.

In 1929 Harry and Earl opened their first Dallas location downtown in the Southland Life Building on Browder St. It was called Luby’s. The cafeteria provided fresh food served in the quickest time possible in pleasant surroundings and included tablecloths and staff to fill glasses and keep the restaurant clean. Each dining room had an organ or piano. The cafeteria was a hit with the downtown crowd who usually had less than an hour to have lunch. An organist would play songs of the day while patrons ate their lunch. A locally famous organist named Miss Inez also played for a sponsored radio segment each day sponsored by Luby’s. Most of the Luby family came to work for the Dallas cafeteria and used the downtown location as a training model for the other locations soon to be opened across Dallas.

In 1925 Earl bought the home at 4327 Vandelia St. in Perry Heights and lived there with his first wife, Bulah, and her mother, Daisy Fisher. They lived in the house until the late 1930’s when the couple divorced and moved out. Earl married Marge Laughlin, who was widowed with a son, in 1941. Marge’s son, John Pat, would eventually join the family business. Marge died in 1957. Earl married a third wife, Dorothy Rose Haber, in 1958 and they remained married until his death in 1990.

By the mid-1920’s, Harry had begun selling his ownership in the business to other family members and retired early. By 1953, Earl, Joe, and George Jr. owned seven cafeterias in the Dallas market and were drafting plans to open additional Dallas locations and cafeterias in Denver. The Dallas locations included one that opened in 1951 on Lomo Alto where Whole Foods sits today. The Lomo Alto location was fully air-conditioned.

Earl’s stepson, John Pat, was asked to participate in the family business as an investor and manager of the new Lockwood Village location. In order to open more locations in Texas and Colorado, the family eventually allowed non-family owners in as franchisees at a 60/40 split.

In the early 1950’s Harry’s son, Bob, founded Cafeteria’s, Inc. in San Antonio. He did not involve any of his cousins or other family members. In 1955 Cafeteria’s Inc. opened its first location in Beaumont. He quickly opened locations throughout the country. After buying numerous existing Luby’s locations from his cousins, Bob resigned his operational control in 1971 and the company went public in 1973. Bob’s company never had the rights to the Luby’s name in Dallas so he couldn’t open any new locations in the city. Because he felt his uncle Earl and Earl’s family never treated him well, Bob never approached his uncle and cousins to purchase any of the Dallas locations owned by them.

In 1970, Wyatt’s Cafeteria made an offer to Earl and his son to buy all but three of their locations in Dallas. This brought Earl’s involvement in the family business to an end. Earl’s stepson John Pat would retain ownership of the Lockwood Village location. The Dallas locations are now owned by Wyatt’s and still operate as Luby’s.

There will never be a cafeteria as special or as integral to life in Dallas as Luby’s. Thank you, Earl.

Thank you to Lawrence P. Luby’s Book “The Untold Story of Luby’s Cafeterias” for photos and some content.