Sunday, February 14, 2010
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Happy 80th, Texas Tavern
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
dan.casey
@roanoke.com
981-3423
Dan Casey
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Read Dan's blog
On Saturday, the Texas Tavern on Church Avenue turned 80.
The venerable, never-closed, value-priced restaurant is by far this town's most famous, and that has a lot to do with the Bullington family, which has owned and operated it for generations..
The Bullingtons are honest and sturdy citizens who have earned their money via hard work, dime by dime.
The Texas Tavern's look is distinctive, authentic and free of kitsch. Actually, it goes way beyond those terms. In its simplicity is a beauty that harks back to a bygone era.
It has qualities of a Tom Waits tune, or an Edward Hopper painting, or one of Hemingway's short stories. It's a clean, well-lighted place.
Not a bit of it is phony. That includes the red stools, the sassy signs, the 65 coats of red and white paint on the interior woodwork, and the restaurant's spick-and-span metal counter.
The same goes for its wisecracking countermen.
They're like characters from a Jim Thompson novel or a Quentin Tarantino movie. Some, like Tim Goff, who has worked there for 21 years, make careers out of the Texas Tavern.
When fourth-generation owner Matt Bullington talks about the ambience, it's in terms of "cultural moorings." By that he means there are very few places that never change.
The Texas Tavern is one of them, and I get every bit of that. Some people will want me hanged for the heresy that follows.
I will never understand the allure of the Texas Tavern's food. The best thing that can be said about it is, it's so inexpensive that you get your money's worth.
And it's not inedible. Neither is sawdust, but that doesn't mean its particularly fun going down.
Late on a weekend night, many of the TT's customers are there only because they left their good judgment and palates somewhere in a bar downtown.
Why anyone would eat there in the daytime is beyond my ken. But they do, by the droves.
Friday, one of them was Glen Manseaux, who said he's been eating "chile" and burgers at the TT about twice a week since he moved here from Norfolk in 1979.
But "I couldn't drag my wife in here," Manseaux confided. "She's from New York. ... She calls it a dump."
Let us consider the TT's two most famous menu items.
First is the ballyhooed chile. In a busy week, the TT will go through 200 gallons.
Five years ago, Bullington estimated that in its first 75 years, the restaurant sold 20 million bowls.
Yes is it consistent. And yes, it has calories. And yes, at $1.60 a bowl, it's cheaper than a cup of coffee almost anywhere else.
Those are the most complimentary things you can say about it, though.
The stuff is tasteless and overloaded with cornstarch and cheap beans. Plus there are morsels of ground beef that are cooked almost till they are petrified.
Each bowl has the texture of thickened gruel.
When I ate lunch there Friday, I challenged the chile-loving patrons to articulate what they like about it.
But all I got were answers like the one from Alechia Sirry of Eagle Rock.
"It's just good. It's great," she said. "I guess what's in it."
It's the worst chili I've ever eaten.
"You're free to have your own opinion," Bullington told me. "I'm glad most of the people in the Roanoke Valley disagree with you. If it wasn't good, we wouldn't have stayed open for 80 years."
And then there's the Cheesy Western, a fried egg on a cheeseburger. The concoction is disgusting both in concept and up close in person. It's the most unappetizing menu item I've ever laid eyes on.
I know: Legions of eaters in a 100-mile radius around Roanoke swear by Cheesy Westerns. It earned the TT a mention in the book "Hamburger America," by George Motz. Some other restaurants offer it on their menus -- the most sincere form of flattery.
I will never understand why.
On the other hand, food isn't everything, even at a diner.
When you consider all of its qualities, Texas Tavern is pretty marvelous.
As a business, it's a moneymaker, a solid employer and a tax generator.
A stalwart and respectable family owns and runs it.
The atmosphere and the staff are unmatched by anything else in Roanoke, and, I dare say, pretty much anything else in the country. It's cultural moorings are real.
In those respects it is special, and it's ours.
So happy 80th, Texas Tavern.
Just my opinion, but the food is your only weak spot.
