Mammy's Cupboard

Founded in 1940 just south of Natchez on U.S. Highway 61, Mammy's Cupboard became a notable roadside restaurant because its building was shaped as a smiling mammy figure, with the dining room and gift shop inside the brick skirt. Created to attract tourists visiting nearby antebellum mansions, it also drew on the renewed popularity of the mammy image after Gone with the Wind. About 28 feet tall, the structure became one of the area's most striking examples of roadside architecture. Its history also reveals changing attitudes toward race, as its controversial imagery was altered during the Civil Rights Movement and has remained debated even as the restaurant continued operating.

Mississippi · United States