As one of those many Bradley Countians, calling home someplace other than the sandy loam soil in Southeast Arkansas – I gravitate to the ‘Warren Welcome Center,” upon each and every visit back home.
Once, for generations before me, it was a place called Glasgow’s Soda Fountain on the West Side of Main Street, across from the Bradley County Courthouse. It was last owned by Wayne Wisener, who was called away to serve in World War II.
Then after World War II, Wayne returned to ‘Warren Welcome Center,” and by buying out a café and pool hall owned by Frank Culbertson. He transformed that purchase into Wayne’s Confectionary on the South side of East Cedar Street between Hankins Hardware and Ederington’s Department Store.
Wayne’s ruled the roost, as a must go to place, until the once bustling café, pool hall and sporting goods empire, faded with time in the late 1980s.
Today, the new “Warren Welcome Center,” at least for the last two decades has been Molly’s Diner in the 200 block of South Myrtle.
Molly’s is in what many who can recall was the old “farm implement and used furniture warehouse,” of the C.W. Hankins & Sons Furniture Store. Molly’s is now under the careful tutelage of Ronnie Higgins and his son Brent.
You are correct if your Warren recollections serves your recalling Higgins started out by operating the old Shorty Rowland’s Dairy Queen next door to Frazer Funeral Home as a revised take out dairy bar as place called the ‘Chat & Chew.’
Higgins then took over Dave’s Café down on North Cypress Street, once next door to the Blankenship Motor Company.
He later expanded into the current building of Molly’s just a stone’s throw across the street on that corner.
My Pastime point, from my perspective, is, Molly’s kind of took over from Wayne’s as a gathering place for meals and coffee time in the downtown area. It is basically a home cooking type place.
Modern technology has replaced the old 8 x 12 inch black-slate chalkboard where the owner himself, Wayne Wisener, or his trusted lieutenants over the years, Paul Whitaker, Jimmy Russell, Cigar Jones, Jerry Doggett and others took down a message while laboring in long white aprons in and around the grill and counter.
If someone dropped by looking for you or wanted to leave a message, often it was found on the blackboard.
And for sure if it was urgent, the wait staff and all the others, knew to alert you to call home or get home ASAP and who left that message for you.
All these places were also, just as Molly’s is today, truly a place to be welcomed back to Warren and Bradley County.
Just as they are welcoming people by name every morning starting at 5 a.m. and lasting until the late lunch crowd goes home by 2 p.m.
Mollys has morphed into the exact style of welcoming place I have always found from the Higgins family back to the late Peggy Holbrook Higgins, Ronnie’s mom. She was the head dietary manager for the Bradley County Medical Center for 32 years. Many times, during those three decades, as my mom was an LPN at the hospital, I ate at BCMC.
Ms. Higgins always knew me and made me feel welcome and was always making sure I was well fed.
Ronnie, her son, was a few years ahead of me at WHS, but that connection was strong. She was proud of her son and his athletic and academic accomplishments. Many can still recall his prowess as a running back for the Lumberjacks and the Arkansas A&M Boll Weevils.
Only a few, like me can recall, he won at least from AIC games with his toe – as a placekicker – augmenting the touchdowns he carried across the goal lines for the Boll Weevils.
Higgins was an NAIA Honorable Mention All-American in 1963, ’64, and ’65 while leading UAM to a pair of Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference championships in ’63 and ’65.
A bruising runner who also doubled as a place kicker, Higgins finished his career with 2,061 rushing yards, at the time a school record and still 10th on the UAM rushing charts. Higgins had seven 100-yard rushing games, topped by a 169-yard effort against Henderson State in 1965.
Higgins combined a nose for the goal line with a talented right foot to score 187 points, at the time a UAM career record and still fourth on the school’s all-time scoring charts. He finished his career with 15 touchdowns, 55 extra points, and 10 field goals.
Football aside, if I returned to Warren after a prolonged absence, Ms. Peggy always remembered me and made me feel welcome to be home.
Ronnie and his staff at the ‘Chat and Chew,” and at Molly’s over the years have done the same welcoming routine.
Time and time again. Year after Year.
Many might recall the days before any “franchise” or “chain” eating joint was in Warren. The locals didn’t get rich, mainly because the clientele was just like me most of my life, poor folks.
It took quite a while for a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a Mazzio’s Pizza, a McDonalds, a Subway Sandwich Shoppe and other nationally known places develop in Warren.
Heck, I remember when the Ride With Rose Oil Station was on the corner where the KFC, on my last trip to Warren, had apparently failed and gone out of business.
Almost 45 years ago on a hot, summer day, I wrote a feature story on Paul Whitaker as he was about to leave that long white apron and go take up a spot in the Bradley County Courthouse.
He recalled, as I added an old political photo of, him and U.S. Senator, (Governor, and Congressman) David Pryor shaking hands, the date and the time of day it was when I snapped that photo about 12 years earlier.
I’ve never walked into Wayne’s or drove by the Chat and Chew (when it was operating) or sat down at Molly’s and been a stranger – it’s always coming home.
A new generation of the Higgins family – Brent now runs the show at Molly’s carry’s on that tradition.
It is a Pastime of remembering how warm and welcoming it feels to see ‘homefolks,” and be welcomed at Warren’s Welcome Center.
