The Sunshine Café in Cordell is shutting its doors, possibly by the end of next week.
Owners Donna and Larry Jones have decided it’s time to close and Saturday, Aug. 29, could the final day, though that’s not set in stone, Donna says.
“We still have a lot of inventory,” Donna said.
She and Terry purchased what was 2 Morrow Café on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2005. “My last name was Morrow before I married Terry,” Donna explained.
She retired as a health inspector for the State Health Department. “I inspected nursing homes. I did that long enough to retire. Part of that inspection process included the kitchen and inspecting medical carts,” she noted.
Donna is a Registered Nurse. “There were five of us on a team and we happened to have five RN’s on our team. We were required to do kitchens. I was welltrained in the inspections of kitchens, so I felt really comfortable with kitchens or at least I thought I did when we opened up on March 26, 2005,” she said.
Donna recalls, “We opened up on that Saturday unannounced hoping for a dry run.” It was anything but that.
“We when opened up at 6 a.m. we were packed all day. I bet we made 25 trips to the grocery store. They ordered everything on the menu from top to bottom,” she added, referring to the customers. “It was the craziest day. So many little things we didn’t think of,” Donna recalls.
In the beginning, they were open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week.
Monday, March 27, 2006 sticks out in her mind to this day. “I was the only one here. I had three customers at 7 a.m. and none of the help showed up for work. So, I called my night cook and told him to get down here,” Donna said.
In August of 2005 they had started closing on Sundays and they changed the hours from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
After that Monday, March 27, 2006, they changed their hours to be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
As they are winding down in their final days, they are open from 7 to 7 seven days a week and that has been since the COVID-19 outbreak.
Talking about the closing, Donna said, “Our problem is everything we get we pour into this place. The Stimulus money we received went into the café.
“We qualified for a forgiveness loan and that is already spent on employee wages. There’s just not enough to go around,” Donna lamented.
Referring to any specific date for closing, she explained. “We have a lot of food still. So, the closing date could be later than Aug. 29. If someone walks in and wants to buy it, that’s an option also.”
Their customer base has dropped a lot and Donna says she has experienced recent health problems, among them rheumatoid arthritis. In April of 2019, she fell head- first down a cellar, breaking her back.
She required back surgery and doctors also operated on both of her shoulders. She takes Cortisone shots for her knees.
Donna acknowledges she no longer works at the café.
Donna said she and Terry were married on Nov. 11, 2006, Veteran’s Day.
“This place has been good to us,” she thinks. “It’s provided a place for our family to have Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays. In the first few years I gained a lot extended family members.”
Among some of those she will always remember is Royce Lowber, her very first customer. Another is Lindel Hamilton. “His kids were in Oklahoma City and his wife was in a nursing home. I kind of adopted him as a daddy.”
Wendell Dunlap rounds out the three who came in every day at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., even though the café closed at 2.
“All were at our wedding. They were considered the ‘Liars Club’ and they were just part the family,” Donna stated.
“Our kids have worked here, we’ve raised six grandkids here, four of them for a long time,” she commented.
Terry’s background is that he owned and operated a Paint and Body Shop for more than 30 years. He still owns it, it’s just not open, Donna said.
“For the last several years, Terry was cooking, and I was waitressing. Terry worked at his body shop and was also working at the café,” Donna continued.
Terry thinks one of the funniest things that’s happened since they have owned and operated the café was when he got a call in 2009 one Monday morning from a guy in Oklahoma City. “The guy wanted to know who owned the café and I told him we did.
“He said he wanted to make a movie in our café and would be down that afternoon to sit down and talk to us about it. I told him after 2 p.m., thinking all along this was just a big joke.”
“Sure enough, they showed up at 1:30, seven or eight guys piled out of a van. I really did think it was a joke,” Terry commented.
“They did shoot scenes at the café for the movie, ‘The Killer Inside Me,’ in 2009,” Terry noted. He and Donna said among the stars appearing in the movie were Simon Baker, Casey Afleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Ben Fullman.
As the final days at the café approach, Donna reflected, “I’m sad. This is home to me.” But she sees a bright side too.
“I’ve never had the privilege of going to some of the high school games. I hope we can do some of that. I honestly would like to see it go on because it can’t reopen if I shut it down because it’s grandfathered,” Donna ended.