Week 3 of Too Drunk to Cry is here. It feels like it's probably about week 32 of this new isolated world we live in but I'm pretty sure that it hasn't been quite that long. I know that I'm missing being out and seeing people, laughing and having a good time but I'm sure that if we keep this up then before we know it things can start turning back around to whatever normal might be. We'll be able to get back to visiting family and going on vacation, taking road trips and seeing new places. This blog started because I found myself with the time to think about some of the different places that I've been and the great thing about that is that the more I think about it, the longer that list grows and I'm sure that this won't last long enough for me to get to the end of it. That being said, this week we'll head all the way down to the south side of East Exchange Avenue in the Fort Worth Stockyards, where in busier times the daily cattle drive goes by twice a day and look in on a real neat little joint, The White Elephant Saloon.
The first time I made it to the White Elephant was in 2011 and my great friend Wade Rozander and I were on a long drive through Texas to see some great bands play. We skidded in to DFW with no plans on where to go or where to stay so we did what anyone else would do and asked the cab driver to take us where the music was good, the beer was cold and there was something happening. We must have hired the only Lebanese cowboy in Texas because $65 and one beer stop later we found ourselves in front of the Stockyards Hotel. Now I could write for an hour about the Stockyards Hotel, The H3 Steakhouse, The Geronimo Suite and every other great thing that classic hotel has going for it but this isn’t a hotel blog, so all I can say is that if you get a chance to stay there, take it. I could also spend hours telling you about how great the Stockyards district is too and I’m pretty sure that I haven’t spent enough time there to have seen 1/10th of what that part of town has to offer. It’s a busy place. We wound up with tickets that night to see 1100 Springs up the street at Billy Bob’s but we had some time to kill so after we bought two of the biggest cowboy hats in the state next door at Fincher’s, we walked across the street from the hotel after supper and wound up walking in to the White Elephant.
I guess the White Elephant was built some time in the late 1890’s and it’s set up to look like it hasn’t been updated or maybe even cleaned since then. It’s claim to fame now is that it is owned by celebrity chef and Fort Worth native Tim Love, but before that, for you Chuck Norris fans out there, it was a regular shooting spot for that televised master piece, Walker, Texas Ranger. When you walk in the front doors you can see bar with it’s brass rail and polished hardwood surface running in front of the back bar along the wall to the right and as you go back past that it seems like a black hole for who knows how far. Across from the bar is the dancefloor and an elevated band stand. When we were there the dance floor was empty and there was no band playing that I can remember. All along the walls and in the rafters are old cowboy hats signed by them that left them there. The really famous ones have a brass plaque with the previous owner’s name engraved on it. There’s the usual Texas names up there, old ranchers that used to bring their cows to town, there’s probably even a Will Rogers hat up there. Now I thought they were fakes because every cowboy hat looked to be the same color until I realized that people were still smoking in the bar. At this time that had been banned in Canada for over 3 years. We asked the bartender about that and he said ‘Yeah, smoking in the bar is illegal here too but we’re not interested in telling people what they can and can’t do’. Texas is a great place. The back bar is pretty neat, it looks to be as old as the rest of the bar with a little bit of ornate carving and a greasy old mirror. There’s a big ugly black white faced steer with giant horns hanging up there next to the bar, making sure that nothing gets out of hand I guess. North of the steer is a great painting of a seated White Elephant, could be where the place gets it’s name, haha. Under the back bar they have those really neat old beer coolers with the wooden doors, I’ve always been impressed by bartenders that don’t have to open more than one of those doors to find what they’re looking for. A good bartender has to have a good memory I suppose.
The atmosphere is really welcoming and the people that we met in there were nice and easy to get along with. While we were sitting at the bar I noticed a framed government document that had the number 51 in big bold type with a bunch of small print underneath. I asked the bartender what that was about and he said that because the White Elephant made more than 51% of it’s revenue off of beer rather than spirits that concealed carry of firearms was allowed inside. If the numbers were the other way around and they made more than 51% revenue on spirits and you got caught in there with a gun in your pants, permit or not, you’d be looking at 10 years in jail and a $500,000 fine. Texas. There’s no place like it.
That’s my story about the White Elephant. If you go, you’ll get to see some pictures of Chuck Norris and drink some really cold Lone Star or Shiner. After you go, make sure you go next door to the Love Shack (another one of chef Tim Love’s places) and have a great burger. And if you happen to stay down in that part of town, don’t bother with any place other than the Stockyards Hotel, get yourself a suite and enjoy the trip and good company.