Lewis Cafeteria at Lunch Time

NACA staff members queue up in the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory cafeteria in August 1952. The cafeteria originally opened in November 1942 inside the south end of the Engine Research Building. A non-profit Exchange was established to handle the finances, while Helen Thompson, a German born pastry cook, ran the day-to-day operations. Employees could also purchase her bakery to take home with them. Services were expanded to include a lunch counter and a food cart that ferried meals to the facilities. By the end of World War II the cafeteria was serving nearly 1600 meals daily in a space designed for half of that.

In 1951 a new wing was added to the Utilities Building to accommodate an expanded cafeteria, seen in this photograph. In the mid-1960s an auxiliary unit was built in the new Development Engineering Building located across Brookpark Road.