Bobby Lee, co-owner of the iconic Big Texan Steak Ranch & Brewery, didn’t expect to spend his summer this way.
Bobby and his brother and fellow co-owner Danny Lee spent June traveling the Mother Road with the Route 66 Centennial Caravan, taking the Big Texan’s world-famous 72-ounce Steak Challenge to cities and towns along Historic Route 66.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this at my age,” Lee says, “but it is really a big deal.”
Lee and I chatted when the tour hit its midpoint here in Amarillo in June. (This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Chip Chandler: How did this whole thing even come about?
Bobby Lee: Well, we always wanted to do something where we’d take the steak out onto a full tour. It seemed like the perfect setting when the Route 66 Centennial was coming up. We started talking to officials about it back in February, and one thing led to another. We thought we were just going to do one or two cities, and they said, no, let’s do the whole tour.
CC: How many cities is it total?
BL: It’s 21 cities. Not all big-market ones; they’ve got some of the smaller towns, too. It’s just amazing the enthusiasm that even the small markets have for Route 66 and how they are all very, very proud of it. I just can’t believe how well we’re being received. Everybody’s got a story about the Big Texan. It’s really an honor. I mean, it really is. I’m so proud of the whole thing and the setup and how well it’s being received. It’s a little much on the schedule and the workload, but it’s all going to be worth it. It really is.
CC: I know you’re very familiar with Amarillo’s connection with Route 66, but what’s it like to see the other cities along the highway?
BL: It’s a real interesting thing because I’ve never really gone to a lot of these old places like Seligman, Arizona, or some of these places that were bypassed by Route 66. It makes me see what would have happened if my dad didn’t make that move when I-40 bypassed Route 66. I remember as a kid, financially, what a bad position we were in and how bad things got in 1968 when it was bypassed. The business at the original Big Texan just, you know, overnight went from a full dining room every night to 20 people for the whole day. (The Big Texan originally opened on Route 66 in 1960, then officially relocated to its now-iconic Interstate 40 location in 1971.) It was a real bad situation for a couple years there until he was able to relocate. It’s like the Mississippi River drying up, and then moving to another place on the river to do business. But the [cities] that we are stopping in, they do a great job of promoting, and the pride is back in that. What a neat trip so far. I mean, you talk about going back to Americana and its original root form. I mean, it’s fantastic.
CC: What do you remember about the restaurant when it was on Historic Route 66?
BL: It was really neat. I remember some of the celebrities and the buses that would come in, you know, Dick Clark’s [Caravan of Stars] coming in with Chuck Barry and Diana Ross and Fats Domino. And I remember, in the kitchen, we had an old wooden desk in the corner that had a special key to it. You couldn’t buy liquor in the city limits on Sunday. I remember Merle Haggard had a girlfriend in Amarillo, and he would always try to come in if he was in the area and see his girlfriend, and my dad would always unlock the drawer and pull out the bottle of whiskey.
[Also in] the early days of it, my dad had put this big table in the middle of the dining room and he would always save it for the cowboys from the stockyards, because they would come in and it was kind of like a stage like we have now in the middle of the dining room. People would sit around and watch those real cowboys. We didn’t really understand why people were so fascinated with it because, I mean, the town was full of real cowboys. But yet, when they were in there, I mean, they were rock stars and the people were just just amazed at them. And I remember the time that we had a horse get loose in the parking lot, and [the cowboy] went out there and jumped on it … and rode it across the parking lot. I remember cars on the highway were screeching to a halt, almost hitting each other. I remember my dad seeing that and running out to that cowboy and saying, you know, whatever you’re making at the stockyards, I’ll double it if you sit on that horse and wave at the people going by all day. The little things like that, and then all of a sudden now it’s a tradition of the Big Texan and how it’s survived for 66 years. It’s hard to believe that it’s survived as long as it has, and it’s still as popular as it’s ever been.
CC: Who all’s coming out to compete in these across the country?
BL: We let the city that’s hosting us pick. Gallup [New Mexico] had their own challenge and they had a steakhouse in town that hosted qualifying rounds for people. A lot of them have asked if we would allow them to do a team, whether it be the mayor or like out at the Santa Monica Pier, where they had the Rams put their players out there.
CC: Have there been a lot of people completing it?
BL: Surprisingly, no. We had a competitive eater, Raína, out in Barstow (California), and she did it in 14 minutes, but at the other ones, we haven’t had a single eater complete it yet. The teams eventually finish it. I know it sounds cliché, but to remember, you have to write it down on the back of your hand, like, what city am I in? It kind of blurs together, but it’s still exciting, especially when you bring the steaks out. I mean, the people are just stunned and gasping. It’s just so much fun to get to do this and represent this part of the country all across the whole nation. I mean, what an honor.
CC: Have you ever done it yourself? Have you completed the challenge yourself?
BL: Oh yeah, back when I was playing college football. My dad would call and say, we got a journalist group in town. You need to come out here and eat this. I wanted it to look like there’s some legitimacy, so I’d use my middle name, Robert Allen. I had my son Patrick do it one time for National Geographic. And it kind of scared him that he could eat that much. But he’s the only one of the kids of the next generation that’s done it. I don’t think I could do it again, especially now that I’ve lost weight. I mean, I can barely even eat one of our hamburgers.
