[10] Interstate 40 in Texas replaced US 66 in-place except within individual towns, which were bypassed by retaining the old main street as a business loop.

The Midpoint Café's current name and identity were adopted in 1995 on the advice of travel author and US Route 66 Association founder Tom Snyder.

'"The shop began selling antiques on consignment by 1997[8] alongside its "nostalgia food" menu of breakfasts, hamburgers and the homemade desserts which it calls "Ugly Crust Pies".

The term "ugly crust" was coined by Joann Harwell, Midpoint Café's pastry chef, who would create various tasty, freshly baked pies (pecan, chocolate chip, apple, lemon meringue and chocolate) using her grandmother's recipe, only to lament that the crusts looked better when her grandmother had made the same pies years ago.

As a drive-in restaurant for anthropomorphic cars, the automotive-themed Flo's V-8 Café became a filling station which boasts "the finest fuel on Route 66".

Fran Houser and the Midpoint Café as "home of the ugly crust pie" are acknowledged in the film's credits.

The Disney California Adventure park returns the café as a conventional restaurant, reinstating the legendary "ugly crust pie" recipe to the menu.