Editor’s Note: The Five and Dine restaurant in Rock Hill, South Carolina that is featured in this article closed for business on December 30, 2018. It was home to the old McCrory’s lunch counter made famous by the Friendship 9 in the early 1960s. More about about the events that made this former lunch counter in Rock Hill so famous can be found in the article below.

It isn’t often that you can sit on the very seat belonging to someone instrumental in changing history; or the very seat that generations of families have occupied for a century. But at the lunch counter in the former McCrory’s Variety Store in the Old Town of Rock Hill, you can do both!

McCrory's opened in Rock Hill a century ago, in 1918. The variety store was an anchor along the busy Main Street. In addition to a variety of items priced at 5, 10, and 25 cents a piece, McCrory's also had a lunch counter.
TripAdvisor/arilei
McCrory's is long gone from these parts, but that popular lunch counter is still there and still serving delicious food at the Five and Dine restaurant.
Google Maps [street view]
The store, now transformed entirely into a delightful restaurant, serves eclectic food with an American twist.
Facebook/Five & Dine

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From homemade soups and pasta salads...
Facebook/Five & Dine
to a variety of other delicious America fare, Five and Dine is not only a delicious spot for a meal, it's also a wonderful place to take a step back in time.
Google Maps/Greg Jensen
There's more to the history of this nostalgic lunch counter than meets the eye. In 1961 the Friendship Nine, a courageous group of nine students from local Friendship College, staged a sit-in at this very counter and on these exact stools. They were arrested and refused to post bail. It was the first time students arrested for staging lunch counter sit-ins had refused to post bail and the group became famous nationwide as the march for civil rights for all Americans pressed forward.
Facebook/Five & Dine
There's a marker outside the old McCrory's (now the Five and Dine) commemorating the monumental event; and those stools and that lunch counter inside the restaurant are a solemn step back in time.
Google Maps/Stefanie Walker

Have you been to the Five and Dine in Rock Hill? We’d love to know! It’s located at 135 E Main St #101, Rock Hill, SC 29730. It’s open daily, Sunday through Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Learn more on the official website for Five and Dine.

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