Mayberry Cafe & Danville IN Courthouse Square, a winning combination

I love the Andy Griffith show.  Watching it takes me back to a simpler time and makes me laugh.  Barney’s antics and Aunt Bee’s food are among the biggest draws for me to this iconic show, so when I got the chance to dine at the Mayberry Cafe as part of a hosted trip to Hendrick’s County Indiana, I was thrilled.

Outside of the Mayberry Cafe owned by Brad and Christine Born is a Sheriff’s car that is just perfect for posing.  Christine Born said this is the 2nd car they found that fit the bill.  The Mayberry Café is  across the street from the lovely County Courthouse and the Danville town square. The Born’s have owned and operated the Mayberry Cafe since 1989.  The cafe  is filled with memorabilia collected by Brad about his favorite television program. They have a Mayberry in the Midwest festival and a few cast members, including Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle), Jean Carson (Daphne), Rodney Dillard Bank (the Darling boys) and Maggie Peterson (Charlene Darling) have even come. 

While the decor and Andy Griffith Show items made me reminisce, best of all was the menu featuring some good down home cooking. The lady I was sitting next to was a local TV/radio personality and she and I had a great time sharing plates so we could taste it all.  We had to have Aunt Bee’s Fried Chicken Dinner with the maple bacon gravy, we also shared fried biscuits with apple butter, a (I think it was Floyd’s ) whiskey burger and a chocolate dessert made in a cup that I feel a bit guilty admitting we ate every bite of.  You can find out more about the cafe by logging onto http://www.mayberrycafe.com/.

After filling our stomachs, we spent a bit of time enjoying the memorabilia and the fun items the Born’s have for sale.  Then we headed out to the square.  There was a scarecrow contest going on and my grand kids would have loved the Despicable Me characters.  On the square besides admiring the neat fall decorations, we headed into Frank’s place to take a look. This was an Italian restaurant and the building had burned.  The owners redid the building without the second floor and now there is a soaring ceiling and cool decor.  We stopped at several shops and at Gallery on the Square, I bought a few things to bring home.

At Barn Again they had a sign outside welcoming us to town.  Here I saw some items Keith would love, farm machinery the owner had crafted out of wood.  His wife donned a shirt that said, “What happens in the barn stays in the barn,” that was a personal favorite.

What is a small town without a library?  Danville boasts a Carnegie library that was quite lovely.  The town also has a cool Hendrick’s County Historical Museum that we visited later in the evening.  It was the former jail and Sheriff’s home. As we headed inside I saw a piece that I knew Keith would enjoy, a John Deere shaker potato harvester.  after we got home he said, “It is rather rare.”

I enjoyed our tour of the inside which is three floors high. There are several rooms decorated in the period of early 1900’s, including the kitchen, parlor and bedrooms, as well as the jail. I was awful glad they let me out of the jail cell and that I only had a quick visit in there!

The motto of Danville, Indiana is, “A great place to spend an hour, or a lifetime”.  I enjoyed the hours we spent there and I think you would too.  For more information about the town, log onto their website at http://www.danvilleindiana.org.