PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL DONAHUE
Mark and Amanda McMinn with their children Brayden (holding hamburger), Carter (glasses), Beckham, and Kynlee.
Owner Mark McMinn is keeping things real at Dyer’s Cafe in Collierville, Tennessee. “We’re still doing the old-fashioned things that made us what we are,” he says.
McMinn, 54, is the grandson of Kahn Aaron, who bought the restaurant from Elmer Dyer in 1935. “From everything I’ve known or read,” says McMinn, “Mr. Dyer started it in 1912.” If that is correct, Dyer’s Cafe would be “the oldest restaurant in the Memphis area.”
Dyer’s Cafe first opened at 288 North Cleveland Street and remained there for decades until someone bought the old building and the restaurant had to relocate. “It moved across the street into a strip mall in 1986,” says McMinn. The original building had two doors, “on the right side for Blacks and the left side for whites.”
The restaurant is famous for its cooking grease, of all things. Legend has it that since Dyer’s first opened, the grease has been replenished from time to time, but never replaced — meaning hamburgers are fried in grease that could be a century old (well, at least some of it).
So when Dyer’s moved from its original location, a police escort safeguarded the transfer of the ancient grease.
Even though most diners know about the grease, McMinn insists, “We serve a juicy, not a greasy, hamburger.”
McMinn fries his hamburgers in a skillet, not on a grill. He uses a mallet and spatula to flatten the “solid 100-percent USDA ground choice beef” patties before he puts them in the skillet. He doesn’t add any ingredients to the meat. All this adds to the allure of the Dyer’s burger. “It leaves you wanting more,” he says. “It is just a unique taste you can only get from a skillet-fried product.”
McMinn bought his grandfather’s half of the strip mall location in 1996. He closed that location when business dropped off and he and the late John Robertson opened a Dyer’s Cafe on Beale Street. Five years later, Robertson bought out McMinn’s share of the restaurant, which is still on Beale. “I still own the trademark name to Dyer’s,” McMinn says.
After that, he operated another Dyer’s Cafe on Summer Avenue for a couple of years.
McMinn now owns the circa-1897 building facing the historic Town Square, which houses the current Dyer’s Cafe. “I moved to Collierville in 2010,” he says. “It’s a growing neighborhood community. My wife and I started a family and we had an opportunity to move onto the Square.”
In addition to their hamburgers, Dyer’s is known for its “split dog” — two hot dogs sliced down the middle and criss-crossed on a hamburger bun. Other items added over the years include a homemade chicken salad sandwich on sourdough bread, a smoked gouda BLT, breaded fried chicken, onion rings cut from a colossal onion, and “good old-fashioned American chili.”
What’s more, they serve Pasquale’s tamales from a company in Helena, Arkansas, and farm-raised catfish filets from Lake’s Catfish Co. in Dundee, Mississippi.
Dyer’s also makes root beer and Coke floats, as well as “a true old-fashioned shake and malt, where we hand-dip the premier ice cream. We add a little vanilla extract, and we use whole milk.”
The shakes and malts are served in “the little silver can” that still has some left in it after they pour it in the glass, McMinn says. So, customers still get “the little extra” like they did back in the good old days.
Dyer’s Cafe is located at 101 North Center Street, on the Town Square in Collierville.