Blog Post

World's First Mammy’s Cupboard-shaped restaurant, world record in Natchez, Mississippi

Mar 11, 2024

Natchez, Mississippi, United States--Mammy's Cupboard (founded 1940), a roadside restaurant built in the shape of a mammy archetype, which currently serves lunches and dessert, is located on US Highway 61 south of Natchez, Mississippi; the massive statue—twenty-eight feet [8.5 m] high—of a black woman dressed like Aunt Jemima, wearing a red scarf, a white blouse, and a red hoopskirt sets the world record for being the World's First Mammy’s Cupboard-shaped restaurant, according to the WORLD RECORD ACADEMY.

"Mammy's Cupboard (founded 1940) is a roadside restaurant built in the shape of a mammy archetype, located on US Highway 61 south of Natchez, Mississippi. The woman's skirt holds a dining room and a gift shop. The skirt is made out of bricks, and the earrings are horseshoes. She is holding a serving tray while smiling. Mammy's Cupboard has been through several renovations; the exterior has been repaired and the interior refurbished. The restaurant currently serves lunches and dessert.

"The restaurant's founder was originally a tour guide of Natchez's nearby antebellum mansions and she believed tourists would also be interested in this type of restaurant. Also a mammy character had been portrayed in the very popular 1939 film Gone with the Wind, about the same time plans for the restaurant were being made. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s the Mammy's skin was repainted a lighter shade. The current owner said of the Mammy, "There is honor in everything you do and for those who have young people. You have a crying child. Who are they going to run to? Nine times out of ten, they are going to run to the mammy... I want people to look at her and see that."

"The author of Crossings: A White Man's Journey Into Black America described the restaurant as "a massive statue—twenty-eight feet [8.5 m] high—of a black woman dressed like Aunt Jemima, wearing a red scarf, a white blouse, and a red hoopskirt that actually houses a restaurant", while the authors of Frommer's USA said that if you want to visit the restaurant, "you need to check your political correctness at the door". (Wikipedia)

"Mammy's Cupboard, a roadside restaurant giant Aunt Jemima, is located on US Highway 61 south of Natchez, Mississippi. Her skirt, made of bricks, surrounds the dining room and a gift shop. She is holding a serving tray while smiling at passersby traveling on Hwy 61," the NatchezTraceTravel.com says.

"Only open for 3 hours a day, five days a week the restaurant serves home cooked food, gourmet sandwiches on home baked bread and delicious made from scratch desserts."

"So what’s the deal with Mammy’s Cupboard, Natchez’s legendary belle-shaped restaurant: Is she or isn’t she offensive? It depends on who you are, and who you ask, I suppose. These days, she’s more pitiful than anything," the KellyKazek.com says.

"Mammy’s Cupboard is a roadside icon, seen from Highway 61 in Natchez, whose cultural appropriateness was called into question when she was painted black and the name “Mammy” was used in the name.

"Currently, the face of the figure appears Caucasian, although she looks quite sickly. Her skirt, made of bricks, still serves as a café where locals come for country cooking. The restaurant wasn’t open the day we were in Natchez so we stopped by to take exterior photos."

"The massive roadside statue/restaurant that is still known as Mammy’s Cupboard sells lunches and desserts with a healthy helping of politically incorrect architecture," the Atlas Obscura says.

"This anachronistic eatery was built in 1940 to capitalize on the popularity of the “mammy” figure that had been brought back into the cultural consciousness thanks to a character in the film Gone With The Wind.

"The “building” is built into the figure’s wide hoop skirt, which is topped with the dark-skinned torso of a maid holding a serving tray. The 28-foot tall brick structure was opened as a roadside restaurant targeting the same demographic as a number of other “world’s largest” sculptures."

"Mammy’s Cupboard is a roadside business located ten miles south of Natchez on Highway 61. It is a popular culture icon much like other oversized figures across the nation—Paul Bunyan in the Upper Midwest, Indian teepees in the West—that draw from regional or state imagery to attract travelers. Mammy’s Cupboard is linked to evolving southern ideology, and it is especially connected to Natchez’s celebration of the Old South," the Mississippi Encyclopedia says.

"Natchez businessman Henry Gaude built Mammy’s Cupboard in 1939 to attract visitors headed to the Natchez Pilgrimage, an elaborate tour of plantation homes that began in 1932. The twenty-eight-foot high building was constructed in the shape of a slave woman with hoop skirt—a mammy figure. She originally had earrings made from horseshoes and a serving tray in her hands, with white hair and a red head scarf that suggested maturity and modesty. The figure’s exaggerated black color, white circles under the eyes, and bright red rouge drew from minstrel makeup conventions and from standard racist imagery of blacks at the time.

"Originally a café, Mammy’s Cupboard went on to house a gas station, convenience store, gift shop, and an arts and craft center before again becoming a restaurant. During the era of the civil rights movement, racial tensions led the Gaude family to paint the figure as an Indian woman instead of a black slave, but this change was short-lived. Subsequent owners have softened the figure’s decorations, downplaying harsher racial stereotypes."

"Mammy’s Cupboard dates to a time when automotive tourism was booming and visual gimmickry lured motorists off the road and into shops and restaurants. This depiction of an enslaved African American “mammy” is rooted in the endemic racism of the time and the popular culture stereotypes of the antebellum South. The mimetic restaurant, found just south of Natchez, is still a prominent fixture on the Great River Road, which runs from Minnesota to New Orleans," the SAH Archipedia says.

"Although Southern in origin, the Mammy stereotype was well known to Northerners through earlier kerchiefed incarnations including Bill Kersand’s 1870s minstrel song “Aunt Jemima” and the figurehead on Aunt Jemima pancake mix that had debuted at the 1893 Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition. Enthusiasm and curiosity about the “old South” were being both created and catered to when Natchez inaugurated its annual tour of antebellum mansions in 1932; the apogee of the fad arrived in 1939, when the film version of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 book Gone With the Wind debuted in movie theaters. Henry Gaude’s Shell service station capitalized on the stereotype of the enslaved but respected African American nursemaid as portrayed onscreen by Hattie McDaniel, who won an Academy Award for her acting.

"Wilma Gaude originally sold baked goods to customers who stopped at her husband’s gasoline station. While the pumps are long gone, the current tenant again offers pies and other home goods to curious automotive tourists from inside Mammy’s bell-shaped hoop skirt. According to local lore, attempts to list Mammy’s Cupboard on the National Register of Historic Places and to designate it a Mississippi state historic place have repeatedly been blocked because of the building’s obvious racist imagery."

"If it’s a memorable dining experience you’re after, you’ll definitely want to pay a visit to Mammy’s Cupboard in Natchez. The restaurant is housed in a building that’s shaped like a giant mammy archetype, and if dining underneath the skirt of a nearly 30’ tall woman doesn’t qualify as an unforgettable experience, I don’t know what does," the Only In Your State says.

"Without a doubt one of the most unique restaurants in the state, if not the entire country, Mammy’s Cupboard is a hidden gem that should definitely be on your bucket list.

"Mammy’s Cupboard is located at 555 Highway 61 S. in Natchez and is open Tuesday through Saturday from “11:00 am to about 2:00 pm.” The restaurant doesn’t have a website or official Facebook page, so if you’d like more information, give Mammy’s Cupboard a call at (601) 445-8957."