Every now and then, WFOX spins a tune on the Traverse’s radio that just blows my mind with the memories of the place where I first heard the song.
That was definitely the case when Boz Scaggs’ hit “Lowdown” came belting out the speakers recently.
The year was 1976 and Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville had just been open for a little more than a year.
Prior to the mall’s construction that coincided with the All American Expressway being built, the area for miles around was pretty much farmland until JP Riddle started buying out the farmers and sold off the tracts that would eventually include the mall to Charlotte-based developer Henry Faison.
Those many acres of corn and soybean fields are the litmus test for discovering who really remembers the sleepy town Fayetteville used to be even with the largest military installation in the country right next door at Fort Bragg.
At the time, there was a three-screen indoor cinema that would be where my stepfather and I would watch “Star Wars: A New Hope” five times consecutively on the day it opened in May of 1977. Near the cinema was a small passage that went behind the line of stores on the main corridor toward the central core of the mall and on this little hidden alleyway was a restaurant called “Tuesday’s” (not Ruby Tuesday!) before it would eventually be renamed “Annabelle’s”.
Hands down, this place had the most unique decor I’d ever seen in a restaurant.
It had two levels with a few iron staircases to access the upper levels and the lights were often turned down very low so that there wasn’t much more illumination than what would be given off by these glass candle jars with the white netting round them that was popular in the 1970s.
If you happened to be seated on the lower level, the effect was very cozy and romantic.
But what really captured my attention was the huge living tree that wasn’t cleared during the construction of the mall that dominated the centre of the restaurant and was visible pretty much throughout the place.
That was such a unique touch well before it’d become passe at the Rainforest Cafe.
Every time Mom, Lee, and I would pop in for a spot of dinner, it seemed that invariably during that meal the sound system would start playing Boz Scaggs’ “Lowdown” to the point where I can’t hear that song today without going back almost 50 years to those much simpler times in a barely illuminated restaurant with the tree growing in the centre of it.
The cinemas have long since been torn down and the hidden corridor has since been replaced by the food court.
Progress will have it’s way but for some of us, all it takes is one song for us to fondly remember a night out at Tuesday’s in Cross Creek Mall. 🙂