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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1988)
Friday, April 8, 1988/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local ^poinitj ' s the if J si'#) ■ In ini 'anthji uuld fc d (atlti ••■li naceanjj ■d.’’ )mes rianFij ‘dbw crawled ns-1 ie Uadi •udenit wsokd c noim er-pre ‘alcons ale sa® rson «| (he pap s diet* Aggie enjoys running Texas-style bar in Austin Veterinarian gives up practice to become saloon keeper By Kris Leabo Special to The Battalion If the Texas A&M Class of ’88 is like most other classes, its members are probably wondering about where their lives will be going after graduation. Ten years ago, so did Bill Forres ter, Class of ’78. But he never thought he’d be the owner and oper ator of the Texas Showdown Saloon, a popular Texas-style beer joint on Guadalupe Street (also known as “The Drag”) just north of the Uni versity of Texas campus in Austin. That’s because Forrester didn't get his degree in business or man agement as you might expect. In stead, he graduated from Texas A&M’s School of Veterinary Medi- dne and spent nearly five years as a veterinarian before getting into the bar business. This drastic career change ob viously wasn’t part of his original plan at all, but those who know him well have learned to expect the un expected as far as Forrester is con cerned . When you talk to Forrester, you realize that everything about him is Texas. He speaks with a heavy Texas drawl, drinks Texas beer (from Shiner, of course), eats Tex-Mex food (hot!) and loves to dance the Texas two-step. Bom and raised near Ft. Worth Arrester attributes his decision to ,o his "' rai “If I’d worked (as a vet) in the country, maybe Kerrville or some where like that, Td probably still be doing it now,” he says. Instead, following graduation, Forrester spent a year working near San Jose, Calif, before returning to Texas to open his own animal clinic in Austin with one other partner. He then spent the better part of three years building a steady cli entele. So why in the world would he want to trade in a perfectly secure job with a bright future for the life of a saloon keeper? Forrester admits that he loved his job as a veterinarian, but adds (with a big grin) that he simply thinks spending his days in a bar is a lot more fun. According to Forrester, here’s how it happened: Some of his friends from A&M, who already happened to be in the bar business, were planning to open another bar similar to the one For rester liked to hang out in when he was still in college. While his friends were checking out the opportunities around other college towns in Texas, Forrester was busy trying to sell them on the idea of opening up in Austin. “I told them they were missing the boat,” he said. “There was nothing like what they had in mind here in Austin.” “This is such a cross-section of individuals in here. It’s remarkable how completely individual everyone is. ” — Bill Forrester saloon owner At that time, of course, Forrester had no idea that in just a few short months he would be a part of it all. Eventually his friends decided that Austin would indeed be the right place to open their bar and af ter a short search found a good loca tion close to the UT campus. It was recently a closed punk-rock nightclub fondly remembered among Austin’s new-wave crowd as Raul’s, which was as famous for its bizarre decor as well as its unusual crowd. In one short summer, however, the bar was transformed into the ul timate Texas beer joint. Although Forrester never even saw the original club, he says today there are still some Raul’s die-hards who blame him for their club’s de mise. He just laughs. If Forrester doesn’t particularly have a taste for the bizarre, he cer tainly has an appreciation for it. All that remains of the original club is a wall mural of some giant sewer rats which still exists behind the Show down’s new wooden walls. As grotesque as it was, Forrester maintains it would have been a shame to destroy it. “If you look between the cracks in the boards over there behind the dart boards, you can still see parts of it,” he says. Forrester’s actual involvement in the Texas Showdown Saloon didn’t really begin until the bar had been open a few months and was on its feet. His friends who had opened the Showdown were ready to return to their other jobs out of town and needed someone in Austin to run the bar. That was in the summer of 1982. “They called me and wanted to know if I knew someone that might want the job,” he said. “I thought about it for about half-a-second and said ‘Yeah, me!’ I think I even sur prised myself!” The transition from veterinarian to barkeep wasn’t immediate, how ever. During his first year, Forrester still kept appointments at the clinic in the mornings and spent the rest of the day — and night — working at the bar. “I still don’t know how I did it or how I survived,” he said, adding that his work schedule often ran from 8 a.in. to 2 a.m. Finally, in 1983, Forrester quit his job at the animal clinic and com mitted himself to running the Texas Showdown on a full-time basis. The Showdown, which Forrester describes as “a neighborhood bar people drive to,” boasts what is prob ably the largest group of regular cus tomers in Austin, with nearly 300 personally assigned beer steins hanging above the bar as proof. A quick inventory of the custom ers at the bar confirms this. It seems there’s a representation of about ev ery size, shape, color and style. But while Forrester is busy, noting the differences among the individuals, he is not so quick to see what they all have in common — their friendship with him. Besides having a certain Hair for cold beer, many of the regulars go to the Showdown because they say it feels like home. The atmosphere is family-like — it’s almost like being in Forrester’s living room. And the cus tomers think of Forrester as family, too. Susan, a Showdown regular for about five years, says that Forrester is like a father figure to lots of the fe male customers there, referring to his practice of tactfully heading off obnoxious men at the pass, so to speak. Then there are guys like Davy Jones, who holds stein number one in the “stein club.” He’s been going to the bar since the first day the Showdown opened its doors. Although he says he wasn’t the original owner of number one — Forrester was — it was ceremo niously given to him by Forrester on his birthday a few years back because “that’s the kind of guy he is.” Birthday parties and entire bar outings are also a regular tradition at Forrester’s bar. This year Forrester is organizing his Seventh-Sixth Annual Lucken- bach bus trip for the Showdown reg ulars. The seventh-sixth annual? “One year we went twice,” he says. He remembers when somebody once told him “You know you’re a Texas Showdown Vermin (a term of endearment) when you get on a bus at one bar and drive 75 miles to drink at another bar.” So how does an Aggie like Forres ter fare in a Longhorn town like Austin? Actually, he loves it. “I’m a loyal Aggie, of course,” Forrester says, but he adds that he really likes the traditional rivalry be tween the two schools. After spending the last six years just a stone’s throw from his rival, Forrester really believes the people who go to these two schools have a lot more in common than they think. But that’s really so surprising, be cause to Forrester, Austin and Col lege Station both mean the same thing — good friends. Bomb decimates car, kills driver in Fort Worth FORT WORTH (AP) — A bomb attached to an automobile exploded Thursday on a north- side street, killing the driver and scattering car parts along the roadway, lire officials said. “People around were saying they believe it was [parked and a male was inside,” Lt. F.D. Tacker of the Fort Worth Fire Department said. | The bomh exploded shortly before 2:30 p.m. near the intersection of Loop 820 and North j Beach Street, shooting flames high into the air and scattering parts for about a one-block area. I Tacker said investigators from the lire depart ment, the Fort Worth Police Department’s bomb squad and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, To bacco and Firearms went to the explosion site. The car was engulfed in flames when firefight ers arrived, Tacker said. The victim was trapped in the car. Don Peacock, a fire marshal, said investigators on the scene are still trying to gather pieces of the bomb. “I just talked to investigators awhile ago,” Pea cock says. “Looks like it might have been a pipe bomb. “One of the medical officers told one of our people that the guy had gotten put of his car to get a glass of iced tea and when he got back in it exploded.” There were unconfirmed reports that some one in a passing vehicle may have tossed the de vice into the car. Police said the victim had stopped to eat at a small barbecue restaurant, and the explosion oc curred near the establishment. “They say this guy stopped out there at this little barbecue stand and went back into his car and sat there a little while, and then it blows,” Peacock said. Police charge for setting fire A College Station man charged with setting fire to two area build ings remained in the Brazos County Jail Thursday in lieu of $30,000 bond. Leo S. Thomas Jr., 39, of 3001 S. Texas Ave., was booked into the county jail March 14 after be ing charged with arson in connec- local resident to buildings tion with the March 13 fire of an abandoned house on Miller Lane. Additional arson and burgu- lary charges were filed against Thomas on Tuesday following a College Station Fire Department investigation into the March 8 fire at the Rock Prairie Baptist Church. \ 3* i ice a for ad :ed !>' ■ as :al :ar "JU fear. r ihe^ t ne' f said' t ne totM :d . 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