Hunter's Cafe: 50 Years Later, The Legacy Continues
- Game Changers
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
“I want to teach folks how to make southern food safely and, most importantly, from the heart. "
By: Dominique Huff
In 1976, the late Doris Hunter finally achieved all three goals of her life’s dream: opening her restaurant, having children, and owning a blue station wagon, which she had already accomplished. Mary Hunter Williams remembers her first job at the age of six, working in her mother’s restaurant. There, she learned work ethic, cooking, and business skills–all skills that have greatly assisted her in matriculating.
Like many, she eventually moved on, became a Navy wife,went to worked for a corporate company, got married, and started a family. Little did she know that her husband, Vincent Williams, would later bring her back home to Hunters Cafe. In 1991, the restaurant outgrew its original location and moved, and all was good until 2012.
That year, the restaurant caught fire, and everything was lost. The founder was in a losing battle with cancer. Her sister, Martha Hunter-Pullin, who remained with the business, was burned out.
“The restaurant was burned down, my sister was burned out,” she recalled. “My husband convinced me to reopen the restaurant, which I had to start from scratch with everything, but he had my back all along the way. The hardest part was convincing the customers that we still had it.”
Williams kept her mother’s tradition of making everything from scratch, nothing boxed or canned.
“As a little girl, my mother would not let us have store-bought cakes or box cakes; we had to make them from scratch,” she said. “I remember on my first date with my now husband, I made a picnic basket of home-cooked food as they say the way to a man’s heart is his stomach, and the rest was history.”
And yes, you can still find the homemade banana pudding and biscuits just like Doris used to make.
Williams looks at cooking as helping to build the Hunter Family legacy. Her sister was the bridge as she stayed on deck while she worked in corporate and took over day-to-day operations in 1991. Like any small business, it takes hard work, investment, effort and focus.
“I wanted to fulfill the family legacy that she started so I quit my cushy job and took over the family business,” she said. “People forget you have to work for what you want. Too many people want things thrown at them, but business takes long hours and days.” And she sees herself handing it down to one of her children or grandchildren if they want it. Just like times evolve, so does Hunter’s Cafe. Williams, at the urging of her husband, added a food truck. She incorporated her passion for events and opened an event center next door.
A cookbook is under development, along with cooking classes.
“I want to teach folks how to make southern food safely and, most importantly, from the heart. I meet many professional women who don’t know how to cook and often ask me for pointers, so I see a need,” she said. “I want our event center to be a place of gathering and the restaurant to be a place of meeting.”
She is leveraging the revitalization of Downtown Jackson, such as the proximity to Indian Springs State Park, and using the Stranger Things filming and fan craze to boost the business.
“We become a destination for those from Metro Atlanta who had our food at an event along with those who are here for Stranger Things and the park,” she said. “We make our location work for us.”
As Hunters Cafe is a family affair, she’s doing what her mother did: putting her family to work.
“I want my grandchildren to have a skill set that can make them some money,” she concluded. “I am passing down our heritage and ethics to them.”
Hunter's Cafe Owner Mary Hunter Williams Shares Her Story on VOTV
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