Randy Shuford was a blur of motion Friday at Mom's Italian Villa, the hole-in-the-wall pizza place at 1275 Market St. that his grandmother, Ollie Parker, founded in 1961.
Shuford waited tables, scrubbed the vinyl tablecloths, and rang up customers on the solid brass 1906 National cash register that's been in service all these decades. That was after he spent the morning scrubbing pots in the restaurant's kitchen, which has never had a dish-washing machine.
It was an ordinary day for Shuford, 53, who owns Mom's and has been on the payroll at the family-run restaurant since the early 1970s, where he worked part-time when school was out.
"I work seven days a week, probably 80 hours a week," he said. "I haven't had a vacation since 2000."
That changes Friday, when Shuford will close the restaurant permanently.
Randy, right, and Christopher Shuford work Friday, October 30, 2105 in Mom's Italian Villa on Market Street.He sold the brick building that was built in 1910 to Dexter White who will do something with it, Shuford said, but won't keep a restaurant there. Shuford put the building, which has been paid off for years, up for sale and White was the high bidder.
Mom's Italian Villa is on Market Street.Business is good, but Shuford's had enough.
"It's just time," he said. "Forty-two years of working in the same place. Most people retire and go on."
Shuford plans to take a few months off to vacation and spend time with family, including his wife, their first grand-daughter and his ailing father.
He'll be able to relax, he said, despite going full tilt for decades.
"I'll go home and pass out," Shuford said. "I can [relax] for a little while. I think I can."
While Shuford is relieved, many customers are sad to see Mom's go.
"I hate to see it close," said Scott McCoy, a warehouse worker at O'Reilly Auto Parts on 23rd Street, who on Friday got a to-go order for himself and co-workers. "I like the service and the food is good."
"Some of the best pizza you'll ever eat," said Vince Dean, a former East Ridge mayor, Republican state representative and current Hamilton County Criminal Court clerk.
Dean has eaten at Mom's since the 1970s, when he worked the third shift as a Chattanooga police officer, a job he held 27 years, and Ollie Parker ran the restaurant.
"I'd come in, and she'd fix my breakfast," Dean said Friday, as he shared a pizza for lunch at Mom's with Brad Tucker, his chief of staff.
"She could wait on a senator. She could wait on a homeless person," said Dean, who remembers seeing Parker give food to needy people at the restaurant's back door. "She was truly a mom. It wasn't just a name."
"It's the same food it was back in the '70s," Dean added. "Everything is the same in here."
The restaurant's 99-year-old cash register isn't the only keepsake from the old days. There's an old jukebox, an empty coin-operated cigarette machine and a 1980s-era arcade game, Caliber Fifty, that stands silently in a corner.
"That one actually works," Shuford said of the video game. "I just don't have it turned on."
Shuford's business strategy has been to keep the place pretty much the same as when his grandmother ran it.
She didn't accept credit cards; he didn't until February of last year.
Parker didn't think it made sense to use a dishwashing machine; Shuford and his employees still wash dishes by hand.
Parker discovered the muffuletta sandwich during a trip to Louisiana; and Shuford still gets muffuletta bread from the same source that she did: Gambino's Bakery just outside New Orleans.
Photos of Parker, including with country stars Billy Dean and Travis Tritt, adorn the restaurant's walls, along with other photos of the four generations of family who've worked there.
"This place was built around my grandmother," said Shuford, who remembers how she'd prep salads and other food at a back table in the restaurant. "People would come and sit down and have coffee with her while she worked."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.