A Walk Through Time-Uncle Mort’s Restaurant

Uncle Mort’s Restaurant opened in 1972 and was owned and operated by Morton and Jean Godfrey. The restaurant sat off Highway 78 East near the outskirts of Jasper, and actually originated as a meat business. When customers began requesting sandwiches and biscuits, the Godfreys built a small kitchen and continued to add on as business grew.Although the menu listed steaks and seafood, the specialty was an all-day breakfast, including eggs, bacon, sorghum syrup, and red-eye gravy. In the early eighties, Uncle Mort’s was awarded a gold medal and blue ribbon in the breakfast division, out of 400 restaurants nationwide, by the Pointe in Tyme Culinary Hall of Fame in Phoenix, Arizona.The restaurant was designed and built in the style of an old rustic plantation home, with a well on one side and a log barn next door. Morton, a former carpenter from Cold Springs, did most of the work himself. On August 1, 2008, the iconic building was destroyed by fire. It was never rebuilt and after 36 years, the iconic Uncle Mort’s Restaurant permanently closed its doors . 78