FULTON, MO. -- One of Missouri’s oldest post offices is surviving as a popular place to eat and drink.
Fulton’s Post Office Bar and Grill offers history with your lunch and dinner.
With its original archway walls, post office boxes and mail slots, Fulton’s old post office opened in 1917. It wasn’t until 1989 when the old building was replaced with a new post office and became an antique mall. In 1996, Webb and Lee Langworthy bought the old post office building and built the Post Office Bar and Grill. Today, the Fulton establishment attracts people from all across the country.
Bartender Kristel Verges said, “It’s a fun place. You get to meet all kinds of people. There’s lots of different people everyday. You get people from in town. You get people from out of town. It’s a lot of fun.”
Postmasters used to climb a ladder that’s still in the men’s room and hide up inside the ceiling. They would spy on their postal workers from a hidden catwalk to make sure they didn’t steal money from Christmas cards during the holiday season.
When the Langworthy brothers bought the building back in 1996, they kept everything from the old post office and added a lot of new things.
The bar and grill has an outdoor deck, a karaoke machine and several flat screen televisions. Waiter Nick Hoover has worked here for 2 years and never gets bored with his surroundings.
Hoover said, “What I like about this place is that it’s called the Post Office Bar and Grill. We actually have a view of the actual post office in the back there. That’s my favorite thing about it.”
Owner Webb Langworthy was not available to go on camera, but he did tell me his bar and grill is a dream come true for him and his brother Lee who passed away several years ago.
During the cold war, people in Fulton used the old post office building as a bomb shelter to protect them from a possible nuclear attack.