Are you a coffee drinker? Can't get through your day without a cup of java. Well, before there was Starbucks, there was the Jefferson Coffee Shop adjacent to the old McCartney Hotel downtown from what I remember.

Probably gonna date myself here, but when I was a very small child I remember going with my parents to the Jefferson Coffee Shop. Not only did they specialize in hot fresh coffee daily but they also served up some great home cooked food from what I recall.  No matter what time of day you visited the coffee shop the service was always friendly.  I mean, if you wanted to fiind out what was going in Texarkana that was the social place to hang out. The Jefferson Coffee Shop reminded me of something straight out of a Humprey Bogart movie because of it's tall picturesque windows, pattern tiled flooring complete with stools and tables that gave it that diner feel, reminiscent of the era back then. They eventually added booths in the 1950s and that's what I remember the most.

The front of the coffee shop was where you checked out and they had a large cigar display case that was pretty common in those days. As a matter of fact, I remember my grandfather buying his cigars there many times or at Union Station that was just across the way. Afer looking up a little history about the Jefferson Coffee Shop, history shows that in 1963 a fire broke out and destroyed much of shop prompting it to finally close it's door in 1972.  The Jefferson Coffee Shop was located on State Line Ave when the state line went all the way to Union Station but eventually was blocked out because of the Bi-State Justice Center that was built.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to post about this, but the memories I take from this place lives on in my mind today.

Do you remember the Jefferson Coffee Shop? Here's what many of you said on my Facebook page.

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