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In modern times, it is totally expected for retail stores to have on-site restaurants. You can find these eateries at the likes of both come-as-you-are Ikea cafeterias all over the world, as well as in far more exclusive locales like The Polo Bar, which abuts Ralph Lauren’s Polo flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. But, even though the Swedish flat-pack furniture behemoth has been slinging meatballs since 1985 (and other foodstuffs as early as the 1960s), on-site shopping nourishment wasn’t quite as ubiquitous as it is today. And one nearly defunct, former department store giant was among early adopters of this one-stop noshing: Kmart, with its titular cafes.
Like a lot of mass-market food and drink of yore that’s left foodies yearning for things from ye olde Pizza Spins to Libby’s Fruit Float, the specter of Kmart’s K Cafe still haunts some corners of the internet. Social media posts share throwback photos that recall its general 20th century food court style, with some folks venturing to pin the K Cafe’s peak popularity to the 1980s. Users on the “nostalgia” subreddit fondly remember the days when they might have stopped by for pizza after playing video games, or sipped a frozen Coke while snacking on a pretzel. Details of these store cafeterias are more scant than they would be in our present phone-eats-first era, but a picture of a convenient place to grab a bite and a seat while one shopped for housewares and stirrup pants has certainly emerged. And memories of the K Cafe sure do seem to make some people pretty misty eyed.
Attention Kmart snackers: a taste of the K Cafe’s past
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Zoom in on this r/nostalgia post’s photo, and you’ll see what look like ads for pizza, sure, but also hot dogs and wings, and plenty of soda, pulling a kind of ballpark, movie theater theme into focus. By the 1990s, those pizza offerings would become the province of another sentimental chain, Little Caesars, Bloomberg News reported (via The New York Times). The takeover was scheduled for completion by the new millennium, which also seemed to be the eve of the K Cafe’s demise.
A Facebook account called Greasy News also shared what appears to be an undated menu listing a $2.49 cheeseburger plate with fries and a 75-cent peach cobbler from happier times, which sends the whole conceit further into sit-down diner territory. Yet another subreddit, this one dedicated to the 1980s, even includes a post with a black and white image purportedly promoting Kmart’s “Italian Festival Days,” when lasagna, veal parm, and spaghetti with meat sauce were all $1.88.
Professional reviews of Kmart’s plates are either lost to time or, more likely, never existed. But one commenter on the 1980s Italian fare post remembers it all as “surprisingly good.” Another detours down a whole different memory lane, claiming that Kmart also made the finest fried chicken they had ever had, which does make one wonder what they were doing at those erstwhile eateries. And keep wondering most of us must; the last full-sized Kmart in the continental United States closed for good in 2024.
