by Charly Mann

From left to right, Gooch's Ads from 1912, 1905, and 1913

Gooch's Ad from February 1928

Over the last one hundred and twenty years more than 500 businesses have come and gone in downtown Chapel Hill. Many of the most popular ones of the past are less than a footnote in our history. While the University has always faithfully recorded its past through dozens of histories, the annual year book (The Yackety-Yack), and The Daily Tar Heel, very little documentation and recollections have been left about the growth and changes of our town. There were over a hundred prominent businesses that existed on Franklin Street between 1890 and 1955 that I have tried to get information on, such as their exact location, who owned them, an inside or outside photograph of the store, and a little history on the business, only to find that in most cases virtually no record exists.

One of the businesses that has particularly fascinated me is Gooch's Café. When I was very young I lived on North Street and my playmate was Dianne Gooch. I also attended the Little Red School House with her, and my father often remarked what a bright person "Girlie Gooch" was. When I was eight or nine, Vic Huggins, the owner of Huggins Hardware once walked me out the back of his store which was located at 105 East Franklin Street near the intersection of Franklin and North Columbia. He began telling me about the colonial style building across the the street called the Carl Smith Building. He recounted a number of stores that had been there when it first opened in 1949 (the year I was born) including one called Gooch's Café. Immediately I knew this must have some connection to my friend Dianne.

Me (Charly Mann) and Dianne Gooch (James's granddaughter) in 1951 in front of my house on North Street

This is the Carl Smith building on south Columbia Street. It opened in the summer of 1949. The building cost $75,000 to build. Gooch's was one of the original tenants. It also included a men's clothing store called The Sports Shop and the Western Union office. Gooch's Cafe had been located in a building on this same location in the 1930s.

Gooch's Café first opened in 1903, and was started by James Emmitt Gooch. He was born in 1871 not far from Oxford, North Carolina in Granville County. He had come to Chapel Hill as a young man and operated Chapel Hill's telegraph system in the late 1890s, and in 1901 installed its first telephone line. James was 32 when the restaurant first opened upstairs in the building that now houses Schoolkid's Records and the Carolina Coffee Shop. James and his wife, Amelia, worked from dawn to late in the evening preparing home cooked meals, primarily for Carolina students.

 
Gooch with an "e" Groceries and Cafe 1910. Gooch's moved to the north side of Franklin Street in 1916 next to the original PickwickTheater

James Gooch was determined to succeed in Chapel Hill's highly competitive and ever-changing restaurant business. Over the course of thirty-three years Gooch's was located in at least five different buildings including the current location of the Carolina Coffee Shop, two locations on the north side of Franklin Street, and finally on north Columbia Street. In the beginning it was more like a home apartment where you could go anytime of the day to have a home-cooked meal prepared. By 1910 the business had moved to a street level location on the south side of Franklin Street where Gooch's had a small convenience store in the front that sold food, magazines, sodas, wine, beer, tobacco, and newspapers, and a small sit down café in the back. In 1916 Gooch moved across Franklin Street, Sutton's location today, and became known for a couple of years as Gooch's Lunch Room.

Gooch's Cafe 1927 Ad

Gooch's was located on North Columbia Street in the 1930s, where it was primarily a small grocery store that offered hand made sandwiches, like a Deli or Subway, in the evenings. By the middle of the 1930's the United States was in the depth of the Great Depression. As a university town, Chapel Hill's economy was doing better than most of the state. As many out-of-work people came to town to start new restaurants. Competition became fierce for diners. The prices restaurants charged for meals soon became less than half what they were ten years earlier. At the Carolina Inn, for example, then considered the best and most upscale dining facility in town, you could get a full course meal for 25 cents.

Find the misspelled word(s) and win tickets to Ramona, November 1936

At the end of 1936 the three Gooch brothers, Charles, Floyd and Leon, combined with the Brooks family to make one last attempt at keeping the restaurant open.

Celebrating 25 years of Gooch's Cafe in 1928

James Gooch handed over his restaurant to his sons to run about 1934, but not even their hard work could save the business. The restaurant closed during the summer of 1937. James Gooch died in 1940. In November 1949 Gooch's briefly came back to life in the same location it had been in during the 1930s – this time on the ground floor of the new Carl Smith Building on North Columbia Street. This was a terrible time to open a restaurant. The number of restaurants in Chapel Hill was at an all time historical peak in proportion to the population. The restaurant closed in 1950.

Gooch's in their final days (October 1936) now located on South Columbia Street.

October 1927, Gooch's was still offering home-cooked meals any time of the day

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