Manufacturers: Sterling China and Jackson China
User: Mammy's Shanty – Pickaninny Coffee Shop – Atlanta, Georgia
Date of plate: 1960

Jackson China

Menu for Mammy's Shanty - Pickaninny Coffee Shop

Inside the Child's Menu for Mammy's Shanty and Pickaninny Coffee Shop

The back of the Mammy's Shanty and Pickaninny Coffee Shop Menu

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Notes: Charles W. Creighton opened Mammy's Shanty restaurant in 1941 in Atlanta, Georgia, at 1480 Peachtree Street N.W. According to one of its postcards, it was "synonymous of gracious living and Southern Hospitality. Our Guests carry away lasting impressions of a friendly atmosphere in which they have had a delicious Southern Dinner." Adjoining the main building at 1484 Peachtree Street was the Pickaninny Coffee Shop.

As a direct and much more realistic reaction to the postcard's happy prose, in the book Driving While Black – African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin – she states the following: "Dozens of family eateries appropriated the mammy image to hawk their food to travelers. The children's menu for the popular Mammy's Shanty restaurant in Atlanta featured an Aunt Jemima-like character ringing a dinner bell beside a dilapidated slave cabin (see photo above). For some Americans (African Americans not included), mammy represented a comfortable figure who signified home, good service, and selfless care for her white family.

"Overweight, sexless, and sometimes offering comic wisdom, mammy provided the idealized view of black women that appeared in popular media from television to movies, literature and advertising. In the foreground, a watermelon-eating black child reminded visitors of the gracious living of the plantation. Mammy's Shanty's "Pickaninny Coffee Shop" exploited the popular stereotype of the feckless black child who lacked purpose and ambition."

Like other Creighton restaurants, Mammy's Shanty – Pickaninny Coffee Shop was famous for "The World's Best Apple Pie." The restaurant closed in 1972.

White body plate with a crude drawing in the well of a dilapidated slave cabin with a sign in the doorway that says "Open 11 a.m. to 1 a.m." and a mammy image to the right holding what looks like a pie. Over the top of the cabin, in crude block letters are the words "Mammy's Shanty" and below the cabin the words "Atlanta, GA." Both the drawing and the lettering are in black.

White body plate with the "Worlds Best Apple Pie" slogan in black lettering around the top of the plate's verge with a burgundy red apple drawn to resemble a world globe with the continents in black. On the left side of the apple/globe is a stylized drawing of a slice of pie. Underneath the apple/globe the "World's Best Apple Pie" is repeated at the top of the verge. Around the rim of the plate drawings of the apple/globe logo is repeated eight times in burgundy and white.

Sources:
Digital Library of Georgia
Driving While Black by Gretchen Sorin – Google Books

For additional info:
Creighton's Restaurant by Jackson China
Johnston's Coffee Shop by Jackson China
Wedgwood Inn by Jackson China
Creighton's International Restaurant by Jackson China
Manny's Shanty – Pickaninny Coffee Shop 2 by Jackson China

Contributors:
Plate photos: Kathleen Lathom
Author: Ed Phillips