The Midpoint Café, a restaurant, souvenir and antique shop on US Route 66 in Adrian, Texas, bills itself as geographically the midway point between Los Angeles and Chicago on historic Route 66. Signage in Adrian proudly declares a 1139 mile distance to each original US 66 endpoint; the café's slogan is "when you're here, you're halfway there".Fran Houser, owner of the Midpoint Café from 1990 until 2012, is the basis for Flo of "Flo's V-8 Café" in Cars.HistoryThe café, built in 1928 and expanded in 1947, operated 24 hours a day during Route 66's heyday and is the oldest continuously-operating Route 66 café between Amarillo, Texas and Tucumcari, New Mexico.Its origins can be traced to a one-room, dirt-floor brick café known as Zella's, built by Jeannie VanderWort and leased to Zella Prin. The restaurant changed hands several times. Dub Edmunds and Jesse Fincher acquired the property in 1956, operating it and an adjacent filling station as Jesse's Café until 1976. It became well known for its hot, fresh home-made pies.Adrian was bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1969, leading to an abrupt decline in traffic through the village. Interstate 40 in Texas replaced US 66 in-place except within individual towns, which were bypassed by retaining the old main street as a business loop. Most of Route 66 in Texas was turned into frontage road for the new Interstate highway or disappeared entirely.
