Snip, Snap, Bite Cafe reopens

One of the most historic businesses in Hohenwald, The Snip, Snap & Bite Cafe re-opens this coming Saturday after a major restoration that has taken close to six months to accomplish.

 

The Grand Ole Opry’s star comedian, and Hohenwald’s very own Rod Brasfield owned The Snip, Snap, Bite Cafe back in the 1940’s and regularly mentioned Snip, Snap & Bite Cafe during the Grand Ole Opry radio show that went coast to coast across America, making it one of the most famous restaurants, certainly in Tennessee during that time.

 

“The cafe will be a working museum”, says new owner George Murray who sold Georges Bar to bring the cafe back to life. “We will honor Rod Brasfield, his short, but busy life, and his accomplishments as one of the stars of the Grand Ole Opry with the likes of Hank Williams, Red Foley and Roy Acuff, it hasn’t been easy getting memorabilia, as many of the pictures just did not exist any more, but Graham Kilsby who has been researching Rod Brasfield for the past two months has come up with some incredible old pictures that in some cases were very badly damaged, and took hours to re-touch and restore “.

“I began to uncover material that even Rod’s son, Jimmy Brasfield, who still lives in Hohenwald was not aware of “ says Graham Kilsby, “Small, but interesting things like Hank Williams Jnr.’s nickname is Bocephus, he was named this by his late Father Hank Williams after Rod Brasfield’s dummy Bocephus. Rod was also country music star T.G. Shepherd’s Uncle. Another fact that few people knew about was that Rod’s harmonica was called The Hohenwald Flash, and so it goes on, he even opened a number of shows for a very young Elvis Presley”.

 

“Through friends at the Grand Ole Opry and The Country Music Hall of Fame I have managed to get otherwise unseen pictures of Rod at The Opry”, said Graham “Ones with his good friend Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff, Red Foley and of course his friend Hank Williams. This is nearly unheard of as The Grand Ole Opry, which is owned by Gaylord, do not loan out pictures, but in this case they did and they were delighted that Rod Brasfield would finally be honored and have somewhere  where country music fans could come and have breakfast, lunch or dinner and see a bit of Rod’s life, in pictures on the walls of the old cafe”.

Rod was born in 1910 in Mississippi but lived nearly all his life in Hohenwald after he married a Hohenwald school teacher, Eleanor Humphrey in 1931  but his life was cut short, and he died at the age of forty eight, but not before he was made a member of the Grand Ole Opry and in the eighties a member of The Country Music Hall of Fame.

His close friend and Opry comedian partner, the late Minnie Pearl once said of him “Rod was really the brother I never had... never a day goes by that I don’t think of him and remember”. He also made two movies, one with Andy Griffith called ‘A Face In The Crowd’ the other, called ‘Country Music Holiday’ with a host of well known names including Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The Snip, Snap & Bite Cafe was also known as being one of the last places that soldiers going off to fight in WW2 and the Korean war had a last cup of coffee and a bite in Hohenwald while waiting for the bus that stopped just outside the door, a number of those soldiers never to return home.“I think you will find that the Snip, Snap & Bite Cafe will be on the historic register of not only the State of Tennessee but also the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame within a year or so” said Graham Kilsby.

“Historically it’s too important not to be, because the country music stars that Rod used to bring down to Hohenwald usually ended up in the cafe, stars such as Hank Williams, Red Foley, Eddy Arnold, Carl Perkins and many more. it’s just a very historic and important restaurant not to be preserved, and I applaud George Murray for spending timeand a lot of money into restoring it”. The cafe will be opened this coming Saturday at 10.00am by Rod Brasfield’s only Son, Jimmy, “It’s going to be a great day” said Jimmy, “What a wonderful way to remember Dad”.