My grandmother Susie is ninety years old and has lived through many interesting events in her life. As she becomes older, I enjoy hearing more and more of her stories from her past, but nothing compares to the story she told about Moe’s Café.

It was back in the 1940s when everyone in the town of Rushville, Kentucky had no jobs and they were just trying to get by. My grandmother was in her early twenties at the time and didn’t have a REAL job. So, for money, my grandma and her friend Jill cleaned houses to earn a little cash. My Grandma always talks about how Rushville was such a great place to grow up, and how friendly the people were.

As weeks went by, the community of Rushville soon collapsed, after everyone lost their jobs. People began to move to bigger and better places to support their families. Jill and my grandmother packed their bags, and headed off to find a better life for themselves. Jill was my grandmother’s best friend since grade-school. They did everything together and never left each others side.

After a few hours of traveling, they both decided to stop and get a bite to eat in a small town right out of Louisville. As they began to search for food, there were no places to be found. They kept walking further and further until they found an old, trailer-like restraunt up the street. The sign on the outside read MOE’S CAFÉ. The looks of the café gave Jill an eerie feeling, but she ignored it, and thought about how hungry she was.

The door to the café was rusted which made it hard for my grandmother and Jill to enter in; so a waiter opened it for them and seated them to their seats. My grandmother said the smell of MOE’S always made her sick to her stomach. The floors were dusty, and the windows looked like they hadn’t been cleaned for years. The waiters and waitresses looked filthy, and the whole café reeked of a moldy and unusual smell.

The food on the menus sounded good, but looking at the menus disgusted my grandmother. The menus were torn up and had leftover food stains on them, obviously this place was unsanitary. Jill and my grandmother decided to eat fast so they could hurry up out of MOE’S CAFÉ. My grandmother ordered the MOE’S burger with fries and a shake; Jill ordered soup and a chicken sandwich on white bread.

Their meals had only taken 10 minutes until they were served, which was unusual to my grandmother and Jill. Both of their meals tasted fine, but my grandmother always said the bread on Jill’s sandwich was a weird color. After a long and dirty day at MOE’S cafe, they finally made it to their destination. While they began to settle in, Jill had an uneasy feeling in her stomach. My grandmother kept telling her to lie down and rest but Jill ignored what she said and just kept moving around.

After several days, Jill was even sicker. She couldn’t move or walk; so, my grandma decided to take her to a near by doctor. When the X-rays came back, nothing seemed to be wrong. The doctors took another test of Jill’s stomach since it was infected the most. The test wouldn’t be returned to Jill for another week. My grandmother kept thinking Jill’s illness could be caused by the food from MOE’S CAFÉ, but she ignored her thoughts… she didn’t want to scare Jill.

Jill died two weeks later. Not only was her death sudden but the reasoning for her death disgusted my grandmother. The X-rays had shown that spiders were living in Jill’s stomach for several days from rotten bread. This all lead back to when my grandmother noticed the odd coloring of Jill’s bread back at MOE’S CAFÉ. After realizing the sadness and sorrow my grandmother went straight back to MOE’S… she knew something had to be done.

My grandma hurried back to MOE’S to close down the café once and for all. At first, the owner began to apologize for her loss; but then told her to leave because there was nothing she could do. After compromising with the owner, my grandmother bought MOE’S CAFÉ. She tided it up and made the place as clean as it could be. Her hard work did pay off, and that’s the reason JILL’S CAFÉ has been open since that day.