Corner Cafe 'Cruise-In' Benefits Food Pantry

Danny McDowell, right, Director of the East Ridge Community Food Pantry, accepts donated food from a participant in Saturday’s “Cruise-In” at Corner Cafe.

On Saturday night one of the city’s most popular restaurants, The Corner Cafe, hosted dozens of classic cars in a “Cruise-In” to benefit the East Ridge Community Food Pantry.

Scores of people showed up for the free burgers and dogs to gawk at everything from a ’32 Ford three-window high boy to classic ’67 Camaros, to nearly new Corvettes.

This is just one in a series of “Cruise-Ins” that Corner Cafe owner Melissa Davenport has held for the community, giving all Pioneers a chance to congregate and show their generosity.

The price of admission was non-perishable goods that went to the food pantry to feed those less fortunate. Danny McDowell, the Director of the pantry, pointed to his pickup truck’s bed loaded with food illustrate the community’s generosity.

Below is a photo gallery of all the fun everyone had for a good cause.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.