Beloved Bandera restaurant turning 100
One of the first pictures of the OST Restaurant circa 1937. The restaurant is celebrating its 100th birthday next week Courtesy Photo
Local landmark, the Old Spanish Trails Restaurant (OST), will celebrate its 100th year in continuous operation during the week of December 6 through 12. It is one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in Texas.
Owners Rick and Gwen Janes will welcome patrons with free coffee and tea as well as drawings, birthday cake and special giveaways during that week.
The restaurant has been through a lot in its 100-year history from fires, floods and COVID closure. It has come back from each event with the consistency and familiarity of a well-respected community institution. The OST Restaurant has withstood the test of time.
Gwen Janes is the restaurant’s longest running owner. She, and her then-husband Harvey Raab, purchased the restaurant in 1978. After several years, she bought Raab out and ran the restaurant on her own.
Alone after her marriage to Raab ended, she met Rick Janes. After marrying Janes, they have run the restaurant together. Several owners preceded Janes and they too, make up the history of the establishment.
According to previous owner Mary McGroarty, the restaurant was begun by Jeff Gray in 1921, followed by owners Cleo Faris, Katie Love, and Pat and Mary McGroarty. The roll call of names is a list of who’s who in Bandera County.
The OST has been a meeting place for Bandera locals as well as Hill Country residents. One story recalled by McGroarty recounts a couple who had come to celebrate being married at the OST for 50 years.
The couple had met at the Cabaret Dance Hall and decided to grab a bite to eat at the OST after the dance. The night wore on and the couple fell asleep in the booth awaking to her father with a shotgun.
He said, “If you can sleep all night with my daughter, you can marry her.” And he did, right there in the booth!
The couple celebrated 50 years of marriage by coming back to that same booth at the OST. Both Gwen and Rick Janes agree the OST is a family. Each of their 35 employees has a part in making the business a success. Some of their employees have worked at the restaurant for over 30 years. Some, like Gwen Janes’ son, grew up in the restaurant. The work is hard since the restaurant is open seven days a week. The Janes have had the restaurant and
The Janes have had the restaurant and building for sale for several years hoping to retire and do something easier. The business and property are for sale together and the Janes are looking for someone to continue the traditions of the OST.
In the 1980’s, the OST was open 24 hours a day during Hunters’ Weekend. Janes recounts some Hunters’ Weekend stories about the late 1980’s. She said those were wild times. An unhappy girlfriend came in looking for her better half, picked up a sugar dispenser to throw at him and accidently beaned Chief of Police Walter Welch in the back of the head when he stood up.
The hardest thing to experience, Janes says, is when loyal patrons pass away. She points to the front of the restaurant and says, “we call those the tables of knowledge. Fewer folks sit at those tables every day.” But as older customers pass, youngsters who have grown up coming to the restaurant do take their place.
Janes remarked many of Bandera’s young people have come through the restaurant working as bus boys or waitresses. Russell Hevenor, owner of Hevenor Lumber and Hardware, remembers his time as an OST dishwasher and busboy fondly. He comments that he learned a lot from Mary McGroarty and admired her phenomenal memory for customer names. “No one else would have given someone my age a chance at a job,” he said.
Not only local celebrities but national celebrities have visited the OST. Janes remembers Robert Duvall, Matt Damon, Mathew McConaughey, and Thomas Hayden Church visiting the restaurant. John Wayne’s grandson has visited occasionally during the years.
Over time, Rick Janes says many other famous stars could have visited but if they came in unannounced, we didn’t make a big deal out of it.
The menu at OST has remained unchanged since the beginning with only a few additions. Janes says they are mostly a breakfast and lunch place.
The menu is composed of items made from scratch, even down to the biscuits and gravy. Chicken fried steak is by far the most popular item on the menu. But each person has his favorites, the enchiladas or burgers being some of the most ordered.
Few restaurants offer weekday lunch specials like the OST. Fried chicken Wednesdays are treated with holy reverence by some Bandera diners. Home cooking has fallen in and out of
Home cooking has fallen in and out of fashion with restaurant critics and writers over time, but the rank-and-file Bandera resident has come to depend on the OST for filling meals with generous portions that hark back to a time when food tasted good and was made with care. The OST has served up the food that creates that feeling of home and will continue that tradition into its second century.