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Morrison's Cafeterias was a chain ofcafeteria-style restaurants, located in theSoutheastern United States with a concentration of locations inGeorgia andFlorida. Generally found inshopping malls, Morrison's primary competition wasPiccadilly Cafeterias. It was especially popular in Florida, with its high proportion of retirees. At its peak, the company was a symbol of goodSouthern cooking and operated 151 restaurants under the Morrison's name in 13 states.[citation needed]
The company began as a single cafeteria opened in 1920 inMobile, Alabama by J. A. Morrison. Morrison helped develop the cafeteria dining concept, which was unique at the time and would later become characteristic of the Southern United States. More than 100 food items were prepared "homemade" daily. By 1950, the company had 17 locations in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida, with the majority of them in Florida.[1]
Morrison's opened 151 cafeterias[2] across the Southeast over the next two decades, eventually becoming the nation's largest cafeteria chain. After winning a contract to cater to the cast and crew of the filmThe Greatest Show on Earth, Morrison's branched out into catering contracts for schools, including state universities such asFlorida State University in Tallahassee,Stetson University inDeLand, corporate dining facilities, andhospitals.
Its effort to diversify into non-dining businesses in the 1960s was less successful, and those enterprises were sold off in the early 1980s by new management. In 1982, Morrison's acquired the 15-unitRuby Tuesday chain. It used this acquisition to launch other casual dining concepts, such as L&N Seafood Grill, Silver Spoon Café, Mozzarella's, and Tia's Tex-Mex. It also acquired three other food-contract firms.
By the mid-1990s, the new restaurant concepts — particularly Ruby Tuesday — were doing far better than the original cafeteria chain, as customers' expectations and tastes had changed. Because of this, Morrison's decided to split the company into three new firms: Morrison's Fresh Cooking, the cafeteria chain; Ruby Tuesday, Inc., which also included the other casual dining concepts; andMorrison Health Care, which took over the food contracts for hospitals (the educational and business contracts had been previously sold to a competitor). Morrison Health Care is now part ofCompass Group.[3]
In 1998, Morrison's Fresh Cooking, unable to withstand the loss in popularity of cafeterias in general, sold out toPiccadilly Cafeterias. Piccadilly has since closed numerous former Morrison's locations outside of Florida and Georgia.
Piccadilly went throughChapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in 2012. As of April 2024, the company operates one location inAlabama. However, several locations still remain in Georgia (Metropolitan Atlanta area).