[From Proud Heritage, Volume III by DCPA. This 352 page hardcover book is now available online.]
Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow wrote early in the twenty-first century that Bryan’s Smokehouse was the oldest restaurant still operating in Dallas. With a wink to Vincents (1898) this might be true.
Elias and Sadie Bryan moved to Oak Cliff from Cincinnati, Ohio in the beginning of the twentieth century. On February 13, 1910 Elias opened his Smokehouse on Centre Street. His smoked meats established the family secret of cooking untrimmed fat meats with the lean side down. The beef stayed moist because the fat cooked through it and was caught in a pan before it could flare up in the fire.
Elias experimented with sauces to complement his meat. He tried thin sweet and sour sauces like the southern tradition of barbecue and thick, spicy sauces like the southwest tradition. In each case the meat drippings flavored the sauce rather than the reverse. He settled upon the thick spicy recipe, which is still served today.
Another early Dallas settler entered Elias Bryan’s Smokehouse and invited the proprietor to try his new invention. Mr. Morton had thinly sliced potatoes and crisply fried them. He called them potato chips and was peddling them as a side dish to sandwiches. Elias tried one, frowned, and then threw the potatoes, the rack, and Mr. Morton out the door. In the opinion of Elias and all subsequent generations of Bryans, being a gentleman or a lady begins with eating without making smacking or other sounds from ones mouth. Elias knew that there was no future for so crudely loud a food as potato chips. Crunching sounds would never be heard from his diners. The future of Mortons Potato Chips, now Frito Lay, has proven Elias in error.
Both of Elias sons grew up in the restaurant and followed him into the barbecue business. The younger son, Fred, moved to Los Angeles and opened a restaurant in the Farmers Market. The Texas Bryans never got over how much money people in California would pay for barbecue.
Red Bryan’s Jefferson Ave. Location
The Bryans elder son, named William Jennings Bryan after the presidential candidate in 1900, was called Red. He established the tradition of Bryan men growing up in the barbecue business and trying to leave it for greener pastures. After playing football at Oak Cliff High School, Red wanted to be a florist. He operated the florist shop over Lamar and Smith Funeral Home on Jefferson Street. He was so engaged in the floral business at Easter in 1924, that he forgot all about getting a wedding license until the holiday had come. A friendly judge opened the courthouse on Easter to help him get married. He married Catharin Willis who grew up across the river on Swiss Avenue. She was not from the historic district above Fitzhugh, but from the prehistoric district below Haskell.
Oak Cliff was growing, and there was more demand for barbecue and beer for the living than for dead flowers for the dead. On February 13, 1930 Red Bryan opened his Smokehouse on Jefferson Street. It was a retired interurban car nicknamed The Tin Shack. Hamburgers were 5 cents, and barbecue sandwiches cost 10 cents. The Smokehouse was a great success.
During the Great Depression, Red sold the crispy fat scraps from the barbecue in oilcloth bags. These brownies sold for a nickel. Many families would eat in the restaurant and buy a bag of brownies when they paid their tab. For the next days, the scraps would be their meat. As late as 1975, several Dallas leaders in Cadillacs and silk suits would order their Bryans barbecue fat and brown. They and the Bryans knew that this meant that they had grown up eating the scraps.
The Tin Shack was replaced by a grand edifice. At Jefferson and Llewellyn, Red commissioned the most famous architect in Dallas, Dilbeck, to build the first and last restaurant of his career. The large ranch style building, which opened on February 13, 1947, is still a landmark in Oak Cliff. The exterior stone was recycled from a county court house in East Texas. The upholstery on the booths was un-born calf. Above the door was a giant tuna, which cost Red two broken ribs in his Hemmingway days.
Sunset and Adamson High Schools converged to fill the restaurant. Eighty-five employees served them. The homemade fruit tarts completed the menu. Red instructed his employees to Ride ’em in on the fender, meaning that his carhops should be handy before the cars stopped rolling.
Red and Catharin’s son, William Jennings Bryan Jr. called Sonny because an invalid uncle in the home was already called Bill, had begun working in the Tin Shack changing the sawdust on Satur-day mornings. The spent sawdust yielded plenty of lost change for movie money each week. Sonny grew up in the business and dreamed of going to Southern Methodist University and becoming a stockbroker. He married the Oak Cliff girl who won the Miss Dallas beauty pageant in 1947. Sonny and Joanne (Chapman) Bryan moved into the apartment above the big Smokehouse. Sonny had returned to the family kitchen as manager of Red Bryans Smokehouse. Red Bryan was becoming a prominent citizen and serving on the Dallas City Council.
Red and Catharin’s daughters, Brenda and Shirley married the center and place kicker from the championship 1960 Texas Aggie football team. Eventually both of their husbands entered the barbecue business. Shirleys husband, Larry Broaddus, managed Red Bryans Smokehouse on Lombardy Lane. Brendas husband, Randy Sims, sold barbecue at his own Smokehouse on Highway 6 between Bryan and College Station. Counting cousin David Harris in Arlington, at one moment in the 1960s every adult male in the Bryan family sold barbecue. Red Bryan alone had five establishments.
In 1973 Red Bryan died in true Texas style. He had a fatal stroke in his bondholder seats at a Dallas Cowboys football game. He was carried from the stadium and never regained consciousness. Catharin operated Red Bryans Smokehouse relocated to Lombardy in Northwest Dallas. She demonstrated that the women of her generation who were prohibited from business for many decades were certainly creative and capable entrepreneurs when the opportunity arose.
Dallas history resulted in the Bryans selling barbecue across the river from Oak Cliff. Cliff Temple Baptist Church and Tyler Street Methodist Church united in 1957 to vote Oak Cliff dry. No more Budweiser beer with Bryans barbecue. This plus the expense of the large operation was the end of the big Smokehouse at Jefferson and Llewellyn. Red Bryan expanded elsewhere and eventually stayed in business on Lombardy.
Sonny and Joanne Bryan saw this as the opportunity to gain independence and their own stake in Dallas. They sold their home, their 1955 porthole continental kit Thunderbird, and a collection of antique Colt firearms. With $6500 capital and the help of an old master carpenter, Don Hoenstein, Sonny built his Smokehouse at Inwood and Harry Hinesacross the river in wet Dallas. Sonny Bryans Smokehouse first served barbecue on Feb-ruary 13, 1958. Luckily smoking meat does not require electricity because the wiring was not in place on opening day.
Sonny worked seven days a week for the first twenty-five years. His wisdom handed on to his sons was, The only smart thing I ever did was to find something I could do, and decide to be happy doing it. Whistling and chopping in his paper hat (to cover the sweatband), Sonny is remembered by Dallas as one of the happiest people in Texas. Having observed his fathers greater success in the Tin Shack rather than the Big Place, Sonny never expanded beyond the one place he could operate himself. His fairness and humor made him an excellent employer. Virginia Big Jerry Young who first rode ’em in on the fender when she was 14 years old, retired from Sonny Bryans Smokehouse after serving barbecue for 60 years.
By 1970 Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse was attracting the most diverse crowd anywhere in Dallas. Two stories illustrate this point. First, during the Picadilly Cafeteria civil rights demonstrations, a carload of African American customers came into the barbecue house and militantly ate their lunch in the armchairs of the little dining room. When they returned to their car, several daily customers who were African American followed them to explain that their grievance did not apply here. Second, Sonny said that he could read the Dallas economy by his lunch crowd. The blue-collar workers were always there; they required a hearty lunch. When the economy turned down, the white-collar workers would pack the Smokehouse rather than eating the buffet atop the bank building. When things picked up, they returned to the shrimp bowl.
In 1973 Griffin Smith wrote an article for the start-up magazine Texas Monthly, about barbecue. It featured a full-page photograph of Sonny Bryan and hyperbolic prose about the beef. The Dallas story of Sonny Bryans Smokehouse had statewide atten-tion. Smiths reporting was confirmed by twenty leading magazines and cookbooks over the years. Sonny Bryans Smokehouse sold all the barbecue, which it could cook. When the 800 to 1000 pounds were gone for the day, the restaurant closed. On a slow day this might happen at 4:00 p.m. On a busy Friday or Saturday, Sonny Bryans often closed before 1:00p.m. It became legendary.
Sonny and Joannes two sons began washing dishes before they were ten years old. They learned that the restaurant business was more about people than it was about food. Following the tradition established in 1920, they wanted to do something besides barbecue. The twenty-first century has begun with Dr. William Jennings Bryan III as a United Methodist minister on the faculty of SMU and Dr. Burt Chapman Bryan as a dentist in Coppell. Will they make it?
Sonny Bryan died of cancer in 1989. Before he died, he sold his legendary name and recipe to four of the customers. In 2001 they operate fourteen Sonny Bryans Smokehouse barbecue restaurants across North Texas. The new owners have cloned the barbecue sauce (to gain shelf life) and sell it nationally at Macys.
Dallas and Bryans barbecue have been good to each other. Lets decide to be happy.
By W.J. Bryan III
