Soup Kitchen to Purchase Roy's Diner Building

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

The Anderson Emergency Soup Kitchen will soon have a new home in the former Roy’s Diner building at 1527 South Main. The final day of service at Roy’s is Friday. The closing on the building is scheduled for next week.

For more than 40 years, the Soup Kitchen has provided a hot meal Monday-Friday, to any in the community who are hungry, no questions asked. 

The Soup Kitchen board has been looking for a new location - a building they would own - for close to a decade, said the Rev. Jack Hardaway, Rector of Grace Episcopal Church and a member of the board.

The current location, which is owned by the City of Anderson, is a converted residential home, and has presented challenges for use as a soup kitchen. The new location offers greater potential to meet the goals of the ministry.

The Soup Kitchen was started in Grace Episcopal Church’s Gadsden house in 1982, and later moved to its current location on West Franklin Street, where it will continue to serve meals until the new location is refurbished. No timetable is currently available for the opening of the new location.

The Soup Kitchen is supported by the Abney Foundation, the Foothills Foundation, the United Way of Anderson, Grace Episcopal church, along with donations from individuals and other churches.

Roy’s Diner, an Anderson meat-and-three tradition for more than 50 years, was sold to new owners last year after owner Roy Ethridge Jr. retired.

The old-school diner served up staples of Southern cooking, including turkey and dressing, meat loaf, fried salmon patties, fried pork chops, homemade cobbler paired with fresh vegetables and cornbread, making it a local favorite.

His regulars, which he called supporters, were a loyal bunch who hated to see Ethridge retire. Under his watch the food remained the same, although the restaurant did expand 10 feet forward in the early 1980s, adding 14 booths and almost doubling the seating. The curb service window, a holdover from when Mary’s Diner operated on the spot, was converted into what is the main entrance today.

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