“It’s a good place to eat, but I’m serious, when I come here I eat too much,” Boswell said, rubbing his belly at the front door. “It’s about a 40-minute drive, each way. It’s always been worth it.”
Temple native Deborah Compton has worked across the street at Scott & White Family Medicine Clinic for 35 years. She remembers bringing her son into the Bluebonnet in a baby carrier. He’s now 34.
Weldon Knape, age 93, initially visited the Bluebonnet when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in his first term as U.S. president.
“I ate my first meal here in November of 1955. I’ve eaten three or four meals a week here ever since,” Knape said.
That comes to about 9,500 meals, if you’re counting.
In an era where fast-food franchises have changed the way America eats out, the Bluebonnet Cafe on South 25th Street continues a 60-year tradition serving “home style” cooking to loyal customers.
The four Pitts brothers took over the Bluebonnet Cafe in 1948. But it wasn’t long before J.C. Pitts and his wife, Laverne, took the helm. They survived a 1977 fire that cost them eight months business and caused $50,000 damage. Mrs. Pitts carried on after her husband’s death in 1983. (She still feels his presence at the coffee counter today, she said.) And the Bluebonnet recovered from a four-year stint in the 1990s when, under a different owner, the restaurant went downhill and almost closed.
That’s when the Pitts’ daughter, Susan, and her husband, George Luck, stepped in and helped turn things around. Laverne Pitts also returned. Bluebonnet patrons today call her a legend. At age 84, she bounces between the dining room and cash register “like a jack-in-the-box,” sharing hugs and laughs with customers.
“It is amazing to me people will walk through the door who have not been in this community in 25 years, and she’ll say ‘oh my goodness there’s Mr. and Mrs. so and so,” Mrs. Luck said. “She’ll ask them by name about their children, and she can almost tell you approximate age.”
The original Bluebonnet was founded at the same location about 1933. It changed hands twice before the Pitts bought it in 1948. Two years later, they tore down the old, wooden structure and built the one-story brick building that seats about 75. Inside, the cafe is a humble testament to a simpler time. Tea is steeped one gallon at a time. Corn, mashed potatoes and meatloaf are served on plain white dinnerware. Free Super Bubble sits in a basket near the cash register because that’s how it has always been.
But two faces that eaters seldom see have played integral roles at the Bluebonnet. Hattie Roe has worked there more than 40 years. And Roy Byars, 77, the chief baker, has been there almost that long.
“My wife told me the other day, I started here in ’67,” the lanky Byars said, sitting at the front counter, taking a break.
At an hour when there’s more opossums on the streets than people, about 4 a.m., Byars is cooking up sausage, oatmeal and grits. Then he begins baking pies - about 15 a day. During the holidays, he cooks twice that.
Overall, the Bluebonnet’s clientele is aging. But like songwriter Joni Mitchell, Mrs. Luck says life is cyclical, and that applies to their restaurant as well.
Although she doesn’t know when, Mrs. Luck says someday, Bluebonnet ownership will again change. None of their children or grandchildren is likely to take over the family business. And when that day comes, Mrs. Luck says she feels confident a new generation can continue what her family started in 1948.
“That would be the truest compliment I think I could give to the community, to my family, is that we could pass it on somewhere down the way,” Mrs. Luck said. “I think somebody coming in as a younger base would have some wonderful ideas.”
