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Remembering St. Louis' "Lost Restaurants" | Miss Hulling's

Welcome to Lost Tables, our look at St. Louis's rich history of restaurant greatness.
Watercolor by Marilynne Bradley

Ever wondered what happened to that restaurant you once loved and have memories of dining at with your family and friends? We did! And we discovered an amazing website called Lost Tables, dedicated to celebrating the restaurants of our past. We are partnering with the site's creator Harley Hammerman and celebrating these wonderful stories throughout the month of February.

Lost Tables | Miss Hulling's

Miss Florence Hulling was born in St. Louis in 1893 and orphaned at the age of three. She was adopted by her maternal grandparents who operated a farm near Mascoutah, Illinois, 30 miles east of St. Louis. She attended school for awhile, but the formal education of Miss Hulling ended when she was 13; she became a full-time farm worker — cooking, churning, making jellies and preserves, and sometimes laboring in the fields.

At the age of 17, Florence Hulling moved back to St. Louis. She was a cook for a family on Westminster Place for a year, and then in 1910 she took a job at Childs Restaurant on 7th near Olive. For 10 cents-an-hour her duties included cooking, serving food and scrubbing tables.

It was at Childs, in 1911, that Florence Hulling met Stephen R. Apted. Apted was a frequent diner at the restaurant over the 20 years Hulling worked there, watching her make her way up to head of the cafeteria department. When Childs transferred its operations away from St. Louis, Apted was among the many customers who urged Hulling to open her own restaurant. So in 1930, with $600 she had saved from her earnings, she took over the failed Missouri Hotel cafeteria.

Click here to read more about Miss Hulling's on Lost Tables

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