Ron Shapiro – Moonlite Cafe at the Hoka Theater (1978-1996) | Southern Foodways Alliance arrow left envelope headphones search facebook instagram twitter flickr menu rss play circle itunes calendar
October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶
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October 27-28, 2023
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Oral Histories

The SFA oral history program documents life stories from the American South. Collecting these stories, we honor the people whose labor defines the region. If you would like to contribute to SFA’s oral history collections, please send your ideas for oral history along with your CV or Resume and a portfolio of prior oral history work to info@southernfoodways.org.

< Back to Oral History project: Restaurants of Oxford’s Past

ORAL HISTORY

Ron Shapiro, owner

Ron Shapiro made his way to Oxford in the late 1970s, and the town hasn’t been the same since. Soon after arriving, he and a few others opened an art house movie theater, The Hoka. Adding a cafe seemed a logical next step, and so began the Moonlite Cafe. With late-night munchies, as well as more sophisticated movie-themed fare, the Moonlite Cafe became a haunt for local characters and celebrities alike. On any given night you might find students or professors, artists or writers, bellied up to the counter for a fix of the cafe’s famous cheesecake or a bowl of vegetarian chili. Unfortunately, the curtain came down on The Hoka and its Moonlite Cafe in 1996, but Ron is still in Oxford, making plans for the next big idea to shake things up.

Date of interview:
2004-07-27 00:00

Interviewer:
Amy Evans

Photographer:

Download Transcript

“

I would try to do a lot of things and sometimes when there [were] movies like Babette's Feast and movies that emphasized food -- [Like] Water for Chocolate -- I would try for the weeks that we were showing those movies to try serve something that was... from that movie. That's the advantage of having a kitchen in... with a movie theater. ~ Ron Shapiro

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