Kumback Lunch

Founded in 1926 in a town created by the 1893 Cherokee Strip land run, Kumback Lunch is the oldest cafe in Oklahoma with the same name and in the same location. So says the very informative menu, which also notes that among the interesting moments in Kumback history is the night in the early 1930s when gangster Pretty Boy Floyd came in brandishing a gun – not to rob the place, but to demand that proprietor Eddie Parker cook him the biggest steak in the house. Mr. Parker is something of a legend in these parts, known for giving free steak dinners to soldiers returning home after World War II as well as to sluggers on the town’s semi-pro baseball team every time one hit a home run.

We came mid-morning and had a meal that would elsewhere be known as brunch: a stack of brawny pancakes, a crisp-crusted chicken-fried steak, a swirly warm cinnamon roll, biscuits and sausage gravy, and a couple of pieces of lofty meringue pie. All homemade, all excellent. What a fine town-cafe meal!