One of my most vivid childhood memories is a pink clad waitress falling in full rush down a flight of stairs at the Blue Boar Cafeteria. The woman screamed, the patrons gasped, and the tray loaded with food crashed to the bottom of the steps.

It was ok. The woman was helped to her feet, the scattered remnants of Sunday dinner were cleared away, and customers resumed their meals.

That particular Blue Boar Cafeteria was located in the heart of Louisville, Kentucky. At the time the popular cafeteria chain was also headquartered in that city.

In America one of the main principles of the 20th century cafeteria was that the customer carried the tray to the dinner table after carefully filling it and paying the cashier at the end of the line for it.

However in cases like the Blue Boar Cafeteria, where a flight of stairs was a dining option, a waitress could assist. It was also sometimes a matter of style. Jane and Michael Stern wrote about it this way in their book, Road Food and Good Food:

"J. A. Morrison, a restaurateur in Mobile, Alabama, opening his first cafeteria, in 1920, overcame what he believed to be Southerners' objections to serving themselves by providing waiters to carry trays from the service counter to the table."

The cafeteria was not always a restaurant in the U.S. A Spanish word meaning coffee store, it was used in reference to a coffee house in 1830s America. Historians generally credit the World’s Fair of 1893 in Chicago with the first true cafeteria. At that Columbian Exposition customers were invited to place food on trays taken from long counters. They were then on their honor to pay for the contents of the tray at the end of the line.

While the cafeteria concept had been mainly to move the customer traffic in and out of the dining locations, the idea seemed to appeal to the public. Soon there were several cafeteria-like locations in the Windy City of Chicago.

Later in the 1890s there similar operations in New York City and elsewhere. At one establishment in New York customers carried their trays and sat at school desk-like chairs. Most items on the tray cost one cent each.

For a time these tray-loading eateries were known as ‘conscience joints’ since the amount of the tab was almost entirely up to the conscience of the customer.

However the true cafeteria, as the 20th century came to know it, first prospered in the Southern states. An early example was Britling's in 1918 Birmingham, Alabama. The S & W chain began in North Carolina. The Piccadilly chain began in Louisiana, Luby';s in Texas, and the Blue Boar in Kentucky.

"The cafeteria concept struck just the proper balance of formality and traditionalism,” noted John Mariani author of the book, America Eats Out, “serving solid, old-fashion Southern cooking---hot biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, turkey with corn-bread dressing, fried catfish, mashed potatoes, numerous vegetables, and salads."

Although the typical cafeteria of the 1930s could be pretty basic, others could be quite elaborate. The Southern Cafeteria for example, Florida was lavish. A postcard view documented it as “Miami’s finest and most modern dining place. Thousands of meals are served here daily to visitors and Miamians. Note the dace floor and orchestra shell. Popular orchestras entertain during lunch and dinner.”

Live music and balcony seating was available too at the Britling Cafeteria in Birmingham, Alabama. A cocktail lounge adjoined St. Clair's cafeteria in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Still the vast majority were simply pleasant places where customers loaded their food selections on a tray, paid the cashier, and wandered off to a convenient table.

“The bounty of offerings, the anxiety of having too many choices, the urgency of moving down the line, and the giddiness of piling one’s tray full of good food at a cheap price constitutes America eating in its most fundamental, democratic form,” added Mariani.

While cafeterias prospered across the country, a flurry of postcards wonderfully captured the glory and glitz of hundreds of them.

In California postcards promoted Ontra Cafeterias, promising "good food and pleasant surroundings" both in Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Internet columnist Stephen Sondheim recently recalled his childhood experience of riding with his mother on drives through Beverly Hills with a stop at the Ontra Cafeteria.

"My mother and I would argue endless about the pronunciation of said Ontra Cafeteria. She thought it should be pronounced On-truh and I was convinced it was On-tray, a logical assumption since the food was served on a tray. We never came to a meeting of the minds, but we did love our meals there. There was something exotically wonderful about eating in a cafeteria."

Generally the great American cafeteria began to lose favor in the 1960s as citizens drifted to other forms of dining including fast food. Cafeterias however still flourished in parts of the South and in other regions of the country where older residents no doubt fondly recalled the splendor of their past.

In those locations at least, one could find as Mariani puts it, "much the same food as they did 50 years ago."

During the 1960s and 1970s many of the cafeteria chains moved to establish locations in suburban shopping centers. Typically this was followed by the closing of "downtown"  locations, and perhaps later the conversion of suburban sites to all-you-can-eat buffets. The next stop was selling to other companies or chains for further economized food surface, or outright closings.

Some fine cafeterias remain today. And technically other cafeterias also exist in the military, schools, and within some governmental buildings. But these are not quite the locations of social standing and majestic memory of another century.

Nothing compared to Sunday dinner at a sparkling cafeteria in the 1950s. It would have simply been un-American to have been anywhere else at the time.