Magnolia Room: How one man saved a Southern tradition
Most regulars mourn when their favorite restaurant closes. Not Louis Squires.
The longtime patron of S&S Cafeteria on Chamblee-Tucker Road couldn’t bear to see its 50-foot stainless steel serving line – and the community it fed – vanish. So, he bought the restaurant’s furnishings – including that famous serving line – and reopened 7 miles away in Tucker.
“I just don’t like to see traditions disappear,” said Squires,70. “Even the old mixer came along. It’s 51 years old and still going.”
He couldn’t claim the S&S name, so he called it the Magnolia Room, a nod to the elegant Southern-style dining room in the old downtown Rich’s department store.
His preservation effort also saved livelihoods: All 24 S&S employees followed him to the new Magnolia Room Cafeteria, which opened in early 2018.
A new direction
Before becoming an unlikely restaurateur, Squires spent decades in retail at Atlanta’s Rich’s and Macy’s stores.
A North Carolina native and former vice president at Macy’s, he has always been drawn to places and foods rich in Southern culture.
“I always loved the concept of the grand old department store,” he said. “They always had a dining room, and it was part of the experience.”
That appreciation for Southern hospitality and comfort food ran deep. Growing up on his grandparents’ farm, Squires ate what they raised.
“The pork we ate was from our pig, the beef from our cow and the vegetables from the garden,” he said. “We were eating farm-to-table before I ever knew that term.”
When he moved to Atlanta in 1988, Squires found a taste of home at S&S. For 17 years, he ate there five, six, sometimes seven times a week, befriending staff and fellow regulars.
“It was kind of like a circus family,” he said. “Everybody had a role.”
So when word spread in 2016 that the cafeteria was losing its lease and would close after 43 years, he was heartbroken.
“I just thought, great cities don’t let something this good and this storied disappear,” he said. “And besides, I wasn’t going to have anywhere to eat.”
Friends thought he’d lost his mind when he decided to buy the place.
“Everybody told me restaurants were terribly difficult, especially if you had no background in them,” Squires said. “But I just felt like I was an entrepreneur. I could figure it out.”
It turned out to be harder than he ever imagined.
“You have to worry about how much you’ve got to order, the quality of what you’re cooking, and how to motivate the staff,” he said.
He also had to worry about keeping the older regulars happy while adding new menu items to attract new and younger customers.
“It’s just the myriad of details you have to stay on top of” that made it challenging at first, he said.
Preserving the past, improving the plate
At Magnolia Room, Squires insisted on keeping 99 percent of the original S&S’s time-tested recipes.
The difference lies in the ingredients he uses: Springer Mountain chicken, never frozen; fresh vegetables, never canned; trout and shrimp trucked in from the Mississippi Delta.
“We didn’t want to modernize too much,” he said. “We just wanted it to be the best version of what it already was.”
The cafeteria line itself — gleaming steel, heaping plates of meats, salads, vegetables, breads and desserts — is part of the appeal.
“There’s something about a cafeteria line,” Squires said. “You get to pick exactly what you want. You can say, ‘Mashed potatoes, and put a little extra gravy on them.’ You don’t get that when you just order off a menu.”
Over time, Magnolia Room has drawn both loyal regulars and new faces. “We’ve even got a younger generation coming in now,” he said. “They come for the quality of the food, and they get the history along with it.”
For Squires, that mix of generations — and of people from all walks of life — is what makes the cafeteria special.
“The one thing that has always been a great equalizer is our cuisine,” he said. “You get everybody at the table. Fried catfish, a good pork chop — it brings people together.”
A family, not just a business
Despite his success, Squires laughs at the idea of being a restaurateur.
“I don’t even like to cook,” he said. “But I love eating, and I love this family we built here.”
He speaks fondly of the friendships formed with regulars and the team of people who put it all together for him: his staff, except for a few who are now retired.
A great day at work for him is this: “I’m in the kitchen with the chefs, we’re joking around, and we’re celebrating a new dish we’ve perfected,” he said. “We struck gold. That’s about as good as it gets.”
The Magnolia Room Cafeteria has now been in Tucker for seven years. Squires recently signed a lease for another four.
“I just hope it will go for 50 years,” he said. “We feel like we are absolutely one of the great old Southern cafeterias in the country.”
