Upcoming Sunday column: The Texas Tavern turns 83
Shot by Dan
My piece in Sunday’s paper marks the Texas Tavern’s birthday, something I’ve paid homage to annually since assuming this columnist gig in March 2009. The big day is Wednesday and it’s the TT’s 83rd.
This year’s tall tale is about the many and varied geopolitical pressures that swirled around the tiny diner on Church Avenue in 2012.
Here are the previous three columns:
Happy 80th, Texas Tavern (2010): In which I extolled the wonderful virtues of the TT’s ambiance, but neglected to say anything nice about the food.
Texas Tavern, let’s have some chile and make up (2011): In which I declared the TT’s trademark chile the best “chile” in the Western Hemisphere (not to be confused with that other stuff that ends in an ‘i’). This officially ended the heated Texas Tavern-Dan Casey feud.
82 years of food fit for the king (2012): The strange and wonderful tale of why Elvis ordered his last meal from the Texas Tavern.
This year’s column includes a broad cast of characters, including owner Matt Bullington, his dad (and former owner) Jim, President Obama, Mitt Romney, and many other other people and local, national and international institutions.
Hope you enjoy!
February 8, 2013 - 1:34 PM
Everyone fawns about the Texas Tavern… As far as I’m concerned, the food is terrible and it has all the ambience of a bus station toilet.
I’ve been there twice. One of those was because I put it on my brother’s bucket list before he passed away. He couldn’t understand why I took him for lunch at such a dump!
Dave and Scott……Thanks for your post….Now I don’t have to say anything.
Opps….How do you “_____” up a fried egg sandwich.? That’s it Dave…tasted like it was made in what you said.
Dave, you have to be in the right state of mind. If you know what I mean.
The Bullington`s have lasted many, many years through thick and thin…Hard work, fiscal responsibility…something a liberal surely doesn`t understand. Spend alot of time at Bus Station toilets, do you Gresham ?
Gentlemen, the Texas Tavern is an acquired taste, and I’ve been acquiring it since the mid-1960s when my Dad first took me there. Love the food and the ambience. In fact, the ambience makes the food taste BETTER! One of the last meals I had with my Dad was a bowl with, a cheesy, and a grape soda. I introduced the TT to my sons, and I hope they will do the same when they have families.
It’s not for everyone, but then, the only thing I know everyone should try is Dan’s Blog. In fact, Dan’s Blog and the Texas Tavern often leave me in a similar state – mild to serious gastric discomfort balanced with the knowledge that I was somehow just a little more enlightened after my visit!
How old are you Applewood?
Take a look at your comment, delivered with pubescent angst… “The Bullington`s have lasted many, many years through thick and thin…Hard work, fiscal responsibility…something a liberal surely doesn`t understand. Spend alot of time at Bus Station toilets, do you Gresham ?”
Now let’s look at how an adult would have phrased it: “The Bullington`s have lasted many, many years through thick and thin…Hard work, fiscal responsibility…”
There was no need for the childish attempt at insult you ended with, nor am I a liberal, as you assumed. I am independent. (Always.)
And if your zeal to find fault in others (feelings of inadequacy?) wasn’t so overwhelming, you wouldn’t have failed the reading comprehension, for what were my very first words: “Everyone fawns about the Texas Tavern,” which means I conceded my opinion is greatly in the minority at the very beginning. The toilet remark was humor, as in trying to cause others to smile, maybe even laugh. But in your pissed off world, that concept is foreign, because anyone different than you is required to be inferior.
Now read the other comments that immediately preceded and followed your comment. See how they both disagreed with me, particularly the latter, without feeling threatened by my opinion, nor stooping to childish insults. As far as they are concerned, it’s okay for me to have a different point of view. That is how grown-ups communicate, and our differences make the world more interesting, as well.
Once was more than enough for me, but my son loves the place.
Politics has nothing to do with their success, longevity or food applewood.
Is the place clean? If so, I’d be willing to try it.
Comment by Dave Gresham — February 9, 2013 @ 3:50 pm
VERY well said, sir. +1
Is the place clean? If so, I’d be willing to try it.
Comment by John Wilburn — February 9, 2013 @ 5:37 pm
At times! If you haven’t been you must give it a try. I have been eating there since I was 8, and I have enjoyed every visit I can remeber,
Gresham, the only childish insult was yours, of Texas Tavern. Really got to you, huh ?You equate the taste of a particular food to a long-standing restuarant to that of a `bus-stop toilet, and then tell the world that this is how `adults` communicate ?????? If you`re an adult, I don`t want to be one any longer….Cry me a river.
#10…Never said a word about politics, Saunders…merely stated that hard work and fiscal responsibility sustained them. Freudian slip there, Sandi.
Libs beginning to get their own lies confused with the other. `My, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to decieve`.
More “Alinsky”, applehead?