Well, at least until 2:30 p.m. Sunday, when the Bluebonnet serves up its last daily special, and the door closes for good. After that, Templeites will have only death and taxes to look forward to.
Bluebonnet Cafe gone? No more of those hot rolls or saucer-sized sweet rolls? So, where are folks supposed to get fried chicken that tastes like grandma’s? Where are the Sunday faithful going to eat breakfast after church?
Even more serious, everybody is suffering from pie withdrawal.
“Where am I going to get my lemon meringue pie?” an exasperated Mary Chamlee said. “The lemon meringue has just the perfect amount of tartness and sweetness with that thin crust.”
After 61 years, Laverne Pitts and her daughter and son-in-law, Susan and George Luck, are hanging up their pans and aprons. Earlier this week, Mrs. Pitts personally called devoted customers to thank them for their longtime support.
“Every other Sunday, my mother comes here just for the strawberry cobbler,” Guy Fowler said. “So what is she going to do now? This is a big issue. My mother is not a happy camper. I guess we’re just going to have to show up every Sunday morning at Mrs. Pitts’ house.”
Up and down Interstate 35, the news spread like butter on hot biscuits. By this weekend, three generations of Bluebonnet faithful scattered from North Texas to the Rio Grande Valley are trekking to Temple to eat one more generous slab of meat, four vegetables, dessert, hot rolls and cornbread and tea - all for less than $10.
Meanwhile, Roy Lee Byars, who has been baking those famous pies and sweet buns for more than 47 years, and Hattie Roe, cook for more than 54 years, pulled out pots and pans for the café’s final week.
Like hungry pilgrims heading to a revered shrine, loyalists set aside other plans so they could eat just one more time at the modest building at 705 S. 25th St. Even though it seats 75, efficient service keeps diners moving so that the Bluebonnet literally serves up hundreds of plates at each mealtime.
The hungry onslaught gathered this week to share stories and to order their favorites. Dr. John Bonnet brought his wife, Beverly, so he could have the liver and onions. “This is the only place in town that makes good liver and onions,” he said.
Likewise, a few tables over, Jan Tyroch ordered fried chicken livers and gizzards. “Where else can you get them this good?” she said.
Part funeral, part celebration, part gastronomical splurge, mealtimes this week filled with hungry customers pouring in and standing chockablock until tables opened. Some regulars even sent flowers along with their best wishes. All had personal stories to share.
By noon Wednesday, diners maxed out the chicken fried steak orders, causing a rare backlog in the kitchen.
“I’m working on not crying,” lamented Steve Roach. “I have had this sick feeling about it closing. I was depressed all afternoon after I heard about it.”
Susan Luck smiled reflectively as her eyes grew watery.
“It was just time,” she said.
She and her husband joined the business in 1979. She has worked every Sunday behind the counter since 1995.
“People ask me what I’m going to do. I tell them: I’m going to church. I haven’t been able to do that for the past 14 years,” she said.
The Lucks want Mrs. Pitts to spend more time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They decided to retire “on top with our reputation,” Susan said. “We’re not selling the business. The Bluebonnet as you know it will go with us. It would be nice if somebody wants to buy the building and open a restaurant. But, it won’t be called ‘Bluebonnet.’ That name goes with us.”
So do the recipes. No cookbooks. No hint about how much nutmeg goes into that sublimely velvet custard pie or how they get the chocolate pie that chocolaty.
Bill Powers and his wife, Becky, were emotional thinking about it all.
“We moved here in 1962 from Houston. The first night we were here, we ate here. We’ve been eating here ever since,” Powers said. “I just feel like nobody can take the place of Mrs. Pitts. Where else can you just sit around and enjoy a family meal?”
Mrs. Pitts and her late husband, J.C., took over the café in 1948. Robert Yarbrough opened the original café 1935; Mrs. A.M. Parrish then acquired it. The Bluebonnet was in a prime location - just a stone’s throw from Avenue H, part of the Austin-Waco highway.
Even back then, the Bluebonnet garnered a reputation for good, basic food, a tradition that the Pittses kept. They also built a solid reputation for kindness and personal attention along with their liberal portions. Their two daughters, Luck and Gaye Sadler of Gatesville, shared fond memories of growing up in the kitchen and working the counter.
Bill Chaney and his wife, Joyce, of Marble Falls always head to the cafe when they’re in town. He has been eating at the Bluebonnet since 1938, when it had other owners. He was crestfallen when he learned this was the last week. “But this is home,” he protested.
Just like home, the Bluebonnet has been a place for family traditions and rituals. On Tuesday, Norman Northen treated his family to a birthday dinner for wife, Becky. The Northens brought their children when they were just days old, he said.
Likewise, Judge Jimmy Carroll, stopping by for a quick lunch, said his mother brought him “in a baby blanket” on his first visit. He has eaten lunch there two to three times a week ever since.
Three siblings - Rosalina Rodriguez, Eunice Weider and Jose Angel Diaz - gathered every Tuesday to share supper and family updates.
Richard Schneider came in every Tuesday for hamburger and chips, Friday evenings with his sister and every Sunday for breakfast.
Danny Dunn and his grandmother, Dorothy Aldrich, have a standing Saturday lunch date.
Lois Adley, 75, and her friend of 50 years, Georgia “Cotton” Addison, 93, had to have one more Bluebonnet lunch.
The Quarterback Club, an informal coterie of Wildcat football aficionados, has a standing date the morning after Friday night games. Northside neighbors also gather for Saturday breakfasts.
All week long, Mrs. Pitts shuttled between tables, meeting and greeting longtime friends. She remained philosophical and modest at the praises heaped on her like ice cream on the hot apple pie. The heart of the Bluebonnet’s success, she insisted, “was in our customers and our employees. They made us. They’re the real story here.”
As Mrs. Pitts chatted with café patrons, a waitress bustled by, picking up empty plates and refilling tea glasses.
Only then did Mrs. Pitts’ eyes fill with tears.
“We have such good employees. They really made this place. I’m concerned for them. I hope they’ll get to work for people who will be as good to them as they have been to us.”
pbenoit@temple-telegram.com
