Go to a village with a total population of 81, located 1 ½ hours drive from the nearest major city. Find a rather run down café, circa early 1900’s, with a total seating in the 36 range. Stir in a few patches of plywood to shut off a couple of holes in the wall and add wood floors, old tables with patched oilcloth table covers, and an open air porch for the vestibule. Also, make sure you charge in the upper range (two lunches of fresh red snapper with dill sauce, ice tea, and one pie ala mode cost $48.00 (including 20% tip). Make sure it is hard to find . . . . . it took us two trips on two different trips. The pièce de resistance is a total lack of credit card acceptance . . . . . cash and checks only.

Most restaurateurs would call this the perfect prescription for failure. It would be hard to gather together such a group of incongruous elements; even if you worked real hard at it. Yet, there is such a place, albeit a place that is a roaring success rather than a failure. Such a success that the "who’s who" of the restaurant owners in Houston, Texas are all loyal customers . . . and what can be a better measure of success than the patronization by your peers.

"Exclusively For The Private Club Field" interviewed the owner of the place and found some "truisms" for success. First, they are in the hospitality business much more than the marketing or restaurant business. The owner, of huge proportions, sits on a high stool and personally greets the guests by name. He also knows what the favorites are of each customer, or if a new customer, soon finds out what they like. This is the primary key to the restaurant’s success, but by far not the only one. During our interview, the following highlights were obviously important cogs in their wheel of success.

Great Service The restaurant provides friendly, courteous, and quick service. Yet there is a caveat . . . . the service is adapted to the volume. Traditionally, in this particular area, reservations are seldom made by the customers. Hence, the erratic volume can produce chaos. Bud Royer, the owner counters this with a "control list." As they come to the restaurant, Bud will greet them with a smile and small talk. If a long wait, Bud never shirks from his duty. He will tell them how long and makes suggestions as to the local sites to visit or he recommends they take a seat on the "front porch," where everybody is friendly to everyone else and the conversation makes the wait go by rapidly. Bud never brings them in to the dining room until EVERYTHING is ready . . . . table cleared and reset . . . water and fresh napkins . . . and the customer’s server is on hand to greet them.

Creativity The operation and the staff thrive on the extraordinary and even the bizarre. The unusual is the usual, rather than the exception. The waiting period is eased with the issuing of the restaurant’s newspaper. The customers never have to wonder who the authors are . . . . . Bud requires that everyone on the staff take their turn in writing an article. How about a new twist on pricing? Bud will sell a slice of homemade pie with their fabulous Bluebell Ice Cream for a rather high price, but if you won’t take the ice cream, the pie costs you 50 cents more.

Menu They keep it simple enough for good production out of the kitchen, yet sufficiently diverse and unusual that the customer doesn’t have a chance to get tired of the same old thing. A list of the headings will give you a good idea of their unique applications. "Throwdowns" include fettuccine stir fry with grilled chicken. "Things That Swam" features such fish as stuffed snapper and fresh grilled salmon with dill sauce. Under "Things That Came From a Machine," we found "Awesome Pasta" which is hand made daily.

Diversity A service that undoubtedly started as a byproduct of the quality foods so much in demand by the customers, has changed to an essential part of the operation. Mail order and to-go products are varied and unique. The original Royers’ Cookbook, to paraphrase, "is not so much about foods as it is about the food that brings us together for relationships."

Care About The Customer The heart of their success, in our opinion, has to lie within the philosophies expounded in their quarterly newspaper. Read one issue and you will become convinced that there is more to life than eating, but if you want the best food, get it at Royers.’

What does a commercial restaurant have to do with the private club business? We walked away from the restaurant convinced that the secret to Bud’s success was "all of the above" plus his interest in people and the fact that he "wore his heart on his sleeve." That he didn’t realize that his people skills and his flair for the unusual more than qualified him as a private club executive. In reality, he has a private club within his operation and his every customer is a member.

We can all learn from the Bud Royers’ of this world. ²