"Longtime Family Restaurants Part of Cameron’s History" by Jay Ermis

Cameron’s Dutch Town: Where the past meets the present

Longtime Family Restaurants Part of Cameron’s History

by Jay Ermis - Telegram Staff Writer

Temple Daily Telegram - September 2, 2012

CAMERON — A power line accident changed the course of history for Steve Hrosek.

Hrosek worked as a lineman for Texas Power and Light for four years in the late 1940s

but his tenure with the company ended in 1951 after his friend, Nathan Wilson, was

electrocuted on the pole they were both on.

They were about to finish the job when the electrocution occurred.

“Everybody wanted me to get away from the job after that happened,” Hrosek said. “My

mother, Albina, died about that time as well.”

So he decided to quit, and he and his brother, Ervin, bought their dad’s café in Dutch

Town in 1951. That was the beginning of their 50-year venture into the café business

that ended in 2001

Their dad, John L. Hrosek, first opened a meat market in Dutch Town in 1918 and

operated it until the late 1930s when alcohol was legalized. He then opened a café he

called John’s Place where he served beer and his prized chili and stew.

In the early 1940s, Fort Hood soldiers inundated Dutch Town because beer and hard

liquor were unavailable in Bell County.

“They finally told him one day ‘we’re going to start calling you Papa John’s,” Steve

Hrosek said, and Papa John’s became part of Dutch Town’s history. “They asked him if

that was all right with him. He said yes. From that day on, it was called Papa John’s,

and we just kept the name after my brother and I bought him out in 1951.”

A wooden building where the business was originally located off Texas 36 was torn down

after the café moved across the street.

“At the old place, when the Fort Hood soldiers came down on Saturday night, you

couldn’t get through the front door. It was loaded,” said Steve’s wife, Helen, 86, who

retired from the county after 24 years and went to work in Papa John’s along with the

Hroseks’ sister, Judy Duffy, now 98. “They sold kegs and kegs of beer.”

Steve Hrosek recalled former Sheriff Carl Black telling his dad one night, “I hate to

do this, but you have to close down because your traffic is blocking the highway...He

asked him to shut it down so they wouldn’t block the road.

“Soldiers were just everywhere,” Steve said. “That was in 1941, ’42.”

The Hroseks moved across the street from the wooden building to the brick building in

1972, keeping the name Papa John’s and continuing to serve beer, hot dogs, chili, stew

and other short order items. They quit making hamburgers because it took too much time

and they didn’t have enough help.

“We remodeled the floors and everything, put in concrete floors because wooden floors

were in there,” Steve said.

“Business really picked up after we moved into the brick building,” said Steve, now 90.

“It increased by 50 percent.

“We started making hot dogs and serving chili and stew and Frito pies,” Steve said. “We

sold 84 hot dogs at one time to the people at Alcoa. They liked that chili, too. We got

the recipe from my daddy. Everybody liked the stew, too.”

“And they liked the dominoes, oo,” Helen said. “They would play every day at noon.”

After beer was legalized in Bell County, the Hroseks’ business dropped off, but

remained steady.

During the Hroseks’ stay in Dutch Town, there were eight other places that served beer;

Matula’s and Mondrik’s grocery stores; the Harris shoe shop; Humble’s barber shop; a

blacksmith shop; Wied hardware store; Laake’s Drug Store next to Papa John’s; and J.P.

Werner’s tailor shop, located on the cafe’s second floor.

Steve said he misses the people the most since he and Ervin retired in 2001. Ervin died

a year ago.

“Things were a lot different then from what they are now,” he said. “They were a lot

quieter.”

jermis@tdtnews.com

All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jay Ermis and the Temple Daily Telegram

BeckyYoungblood at Papa John's - Cameron, TX

Becky Youngblood, owner of Becky's Sandwich Shop in Cameron, established her business in the old Papa John's Cafe location in Cameron's Dutch Town. Papa John's served Cameron customers for more than 50 years and Youungblood is continuing that tradition. The bars in the sandwich shop, made in the 1800s, are the same ones that were used in Papa John's Cafe.

Photo by Jay Ermis/Telegram

Continuing the tradition

BY Jay Ermis

Telegram Staff Writer

Cameron - When Becky Youngblood first walked into the building that housed Papa John’s

Café for 29 years, it was like going back in time.

Beer cans were scattered on tables, and a marble bar and beer signs were tacked on the

walls of the business that closed in 2001.

Youngblood was more surprised by the signs and other priceless items she found in a back

room of the Dutch Town establishment at the corner of Batte Street and South College in

Cameron.

She found Papa John’s the way Steve Hrosek left it when he and his brother, Ervin, shut

the doors and retired in 2001.

They bought the business from their dad, John Hrosek, in 1951, when the business was

located just across Texas 36. The brothers moved their thriving café business to the

brick structure in 1972.

Youngblood was in search of a building in 2009 to open a sandwich shop in Cameron. At

the time, she had operated Becky’s Sandwiches and More off U.S.77 in Rockdale for seven

years and still has it there.

“I had a lot people who were coming from Cameron to Rockdale and they said ‘you need to

open one in Cameron.’ I had always thought about opening another one. We looked around

and I found this place. I had come here before when it was Papa John’s. I used to stop

here and eat chili and hot dogs. It was closed for eight years, so I bought it.”

Youngblood said she favored the structure “because it’s old. I like old places. When I

go somewhere to rodeo (barrel race) I find some old place to go and eat. I just like the

atmosphere.”

When she walked into the building to survey it, Youngblood said it reminded her of a

saloon.

“It was like going back in time, especially in the back room upstairs,” Youngblood said.

“I think the door had been shut for I don’t know how long. It was like opening a time

machine, going back in time. It hadn’t been touched.”

Youngblood discovered an abundance of what turned out to be memorabilia such as Lone

Star Beer goblets and glasses, unopened Falstaff and Lone Star beer cans, cigar and

chewing tobacco boxes, 1960s and ’70s Yoe High School football schedules, Rainbow Bread

screen doors with the metal signs, trunks, the original front doors to the building and

Dallas Cowboys schedules.

An antique coffee urn was left in the building along with a marble bar and three wooden

bars with mirrors. The three bars were lined up against an outside wall. She rearranged

them before she opened her sandwich shop three years ago.

The café also had a back room where black people came in to eat during segregation.

Prior to Papa John’s, Julius Alois Sustek’s Grocery Store was located in the building

from 1928 to 1933 and J.P. Werner had his tailor shop upstairs. Several magazines with

designs of men’s clothing were left behind along with men’s shoes and perfumes.

“I just brought all of the items out because it’s so much history,” she said.

She also found a 1929 soil survey map of Milam County and a beer advertisement sign with

George Strait.

She operates the shop with Mary Lou Wagner and Shayla Cox. She said that business has

been steady with bread pudding as her signature dish.

She also bought the chili recipe developed by the Hroseks and makes that when the first

cold front arrives. She makes the Taylor Meat Market red wieners the Hroseks’ served as

part of their short-order menu.

“It’s been a lot of fun here,” Youngblood said. “I love the building. I can tell when

people come in who have not been here before. They look up, walk around and look at

everything.”

jermis@tdtnews.com

Antique items fill the shelves and walls of Becky's Sandwich Shop in Cameron. Becky Youngblood, shop owner, found these items when she first moved into the building that was home to Papa John's Cafe.

Photo by Jay Ermis/ Telegram