Bash script send enter key or prevent cat hang - bash

Question

I am currently running a Minecraft server in a screen session with this command:
(tail -f /path/to/fifo & cat) | java -Xmx2048M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui
You can shutdown a minecraft server by sending 'stop' in the server console. I am using the fifo to send commands from other bash scripts, and cat to allow input from the actual Minecraft server console in the screen session.
What happens though, is that if you put the command 'stop' in the actual minecraft console, the server ends up hanging right before it should exit because of the 'cat' command. The only way to get past this, is to press enter again after sending the stop command.
How can I get 'cat' to not cause this to hang?
Edit: The full script.
#!/bin/bash
serverDirectory=/opt/games/minecraft
pidFile=$serverDirectory/server.pid
fifoFile=$serverDirectory/server.fifo
cleanup() {
rm -f $pidFile
rm -f $fifoFile
}
if [ ! -p $fifoFile ]; then
mkfifo $fifoFile && chmod 0777 $fifoFile
fi
echo $$ > $pidFile
# restart server if it stops
while true
do
# how minecraft server should handle an interruption
trap "{ echo 'stop' > $fifoFile ; }" SIGINT
(tail -f $fifoFile & cat) | java -Xmx2048M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui
echo "Restarting server...."
# if interruption occurs before we restart, stop trying to restart and clean up
trap "{ cleanup ; exit 0 ; }" SIGINT SIGTERM
sleep 5
done

Answer 1

I haven't used a minecraft server, so I don't know if I'm on the right track here, but would this work?
#!/bin/sh
fifo="/path/to/fifo"
mkfifo $fifo
trap "rm -f $fifo" 0 1 2 3 6 15
/path/to/java -Xmx2048M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui < $fifo &
echo $? > /path/to/minecraft.pid
cat > $fifo
This still doesn't kill off the cat once the server quits, but at least it doesn't block the server. You might want to launch the minecraft server in a function that kills the cat when it exits. I suggest keeping the .pid file for possible future use. :-)