French Fry Diary 592: Merry-Go-Round Fashion Cafe

This may have fallen so far down through the cracks of the internet so that barely anything proves its existence, but it's true. The Merry-Go-Round Fashion Cafe was a thing.

Merry-Go-Round was a hip and cool place for girls and guys, well, mostly girls, to do their trendy clothes mall shopping in the 1970s and 1980s. It was what Chess King was for guys, and much cooler than The Gap. MGR followed trends, if you saw it in the movies or on MTV, they had it in the store. And the clerks were almost always hot chicks who looked like they walked out of a John Hughes movie.

Well, in the early 1990s before MGR went bankrupt they came up with an intriguing outlandish idea. They would open up restaurants inside their mall clothing stores, and call it the Fashion Cafe. Crazy or not, they did it, and I thought it was pretty cool, and have fond memories.

In The Bride's and my engagement days we used to go to the Deptford Mall often, and usually we would eat at the Fashion Cafe as it was a favorite. I have to confess we rarely shopped there, but we ate there. Occasionally we'd hit the music store across the hall or the food court upstairs for dessert, but hardly ever MGR. Sorry, it's the truth.

I know I had a usual favorite, probably a burger and fries. I remember the shakes were big and good, and the fries were straight cuts, usually quite long. And yeah, I would dip them in the shake. I know the service was pretty good as I recall tipping fairly high. The concept was a bit odd, but I remember we always had a good experience there.

The Fashion Cafe is a much missed piece of early 1990s nostalgia. Do you remember it?