(EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of a series celebrating the people, places and history of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall as it turns 50 this year.)
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Charlottesville’s well-known Downtown Mall diner, The Nook, turns 75 this year. The Nook first opened its doors in 1951, serving breakfast, lunch, and for a few decades, dinner. Jeff Hale, general manager of The Nook since 2008, said “The Nook was then and is still now a great meeting place for the community of Charlottesville.”
In the 1950s, before Charlottesville had a Downtown Mall, Main Street was the place to be. It had furniture stores, banks, restaurants, and department stores. The Nook originally operated, for a year, at 521 1/2 East Main Street, at what now holds the bones of the Blue Ridge Country Store. In 1952, the diner moved to its current spot, taking over what had been the American Club Cafe. (And, before that, a saloon.) The first floor of the building has been a restaurant since the 1920s. Hale said in the past, customers would come in saying they worked in the building before World War II…