It all changed at the break of dawn Tuesday.
Small children scrambled inside the old dining room for one last look. Coffee drinkers at a donut shop across the street filled window seats like fans at a boxing match. Men in hard hats crossed their arms, waiting. Restaurant employees of different ages huddled near the Temple landmark, cameras in hand.
Their eyes were fixed on Temple barbecuer Clem Mikeska, 79, now sitting behind the controls of a giant Caterpillar earth-moving machine. Mikeska worked the levers, and pounded iron jaws through the restaurant roof.
Wood splintered. Sheet metal crumpled. Grandchildren squealed. Mikeska’s daughter cried.
“It’s very, very emotional to see. Like you’re losing a family member,” Anna Mikeska-Payne said, tears trickling down her face. “But the memories are all here, and will always be with us. It’s like saying goodbye to the old and saying hello to the new.”
That “new” Ms. Mikeska-Payne mentioned is the modern restaurant now open next door. The family has incorporated the original building’s rustic feel into the spacious dining room decorated with hunting and fishing trophies from across North America. The Mikeskas have built a kitchen large enough to get lost in, and set up a little gift shop near the food line.
Back outside, Clem Mikeska finished crushing the restaurant’s front wall, shoved his work gloves in his back pocket, and turned the job over to the professionals.
Mikeska said the old restaurant has served its purpose. It’s worn out. With no regrets, he looks to the future like a young man.
“This is very exciting to me. This is progress,” Mikeska said, invigorated. “This isn’t saying goodbye. I feel good about it, that we had so many friends and customers, that we outgrew this.”
About 7:30 a.m., a cook in a red apron left the new kitchen to watch the demolition. Mikeska was getting impatient. The giant claw had a piece of wood stuck in its teeth. But by 8 a.m., only one side was standing. Like swatting a fly, the operator flicked the arm and the wall fell with a final thud. A dust cloud billowed up and drifted away.
Longtime employee Lillian Lake watched the demolition with mixed feelings.
For more than 24 years, she has served Clem Mikeska barbecue at catering events throughout Central Texas, Washington, D.C., and now at the new dining room. She’s worked for the Mikeska family so long, she says she fits in with some of the antiques and memorabilia hanging on dining room walls.
“When you look at all the groceries that have come in the door, and out the door, there’s a lot of fun in there. We’ve had a lot of good customers, a lot of good employees, a lot of laughs in there,” Ms. Lake said. “But we’ve moved on to the bigger mansion now. We call it the big house, the White House, or the meat house, whatever. It’s good.”
Like a brisket slowly smoking until it’s done, Clem Mikeska has waited until the time was right to build the new eatery. And with the help of his three children - Angela, Anna and Stephen - now working at the family business full time, that raw dream has become a tender reality.
At 8 a.m. two machines were crushing the old building into small pieces. Three dump trucks had lined up, waiting to haul the smoke-filled memories to the landfill.
