Elvis Presley liked to eat at the 81 Club Restaurant located at 81 N Second St in Memphis.
The reason was the restaurant owner, Lil Thompson.
“Elvis would come in and say,
‘Mama Lil, if I play the guitar for you, would you give me a quarter?’
Lil recalled.
And she would always reply, “No, but I’ll cook you a cheeseburger”.
After Elvis’ stardom, she proudly remembered Elvis an evening years later at her Western Steakhouse and Lounge at 1298 Madison Avenue.
Near closing time, Elvis’ friend George Klein called and asked if Elvis could eat at the restaurant.
“Give us an hour to get there,” George said. About an hour later, Elvis’ group of about twenty friends and girlfriends arrived.
Lil waited tables and her husband Tommy cooked. The party stayed for a couple of hours, enjoying the food and each other’s company.
When Elvis finally got up to leave, he asked Tommy how much he owed them. “Son, you don’t owe us anything ” Tommy replied.
Shortly after the party left, Elvis called. “Look in the back of the telephone directory,” he said mysteriously.
Lil found five hundred dollars hidden there.
“I really loved Elvis ” Lil said years later. “I’ve buried a son and a husband, but the saddest thing of my life was losing Elvis. When that hearse drove out of the gates of Graceland, it liked to killed me, it was so sad”.
In the late 1990s, the Western Steakhouse and Lounge was demolished.
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CINDY LEAL MASSEY, TEXAS AUTHOR
Clever Journeys 