Earl Abel’s Coffee Shop in San Antonio is strictly American fare with a South Texas accent. Folks have been going there for generations, and no other eating establishment in the city has quite the same legendary status.
For many hungry residents and visitors the flying saucer-shaped building ranks right up there with the Alamo as a familiar icon. “We’ve seen a lot of kids grow up and become grandparents,” says Jerry Abel, Earl’s son and owner of the restaurant.
Earl Abel opened his first restaurant on Main Avenue on San Antonio’s Northside in 1933. At one time there were six eateries in town bearing the entrepreneur’s name. When all the men went off to war Earl had trouble finding employees so he sold but one of the cafes. “[Dad] kept the biggest and best of the six,” he says.
Opened in 1940, the Earl Abel’s Coffee Shop at Broadway and Hildebrand, just north of the zoo, was a small, round building with car hops on the parking lot and a counter inside. “It originally looked like the original McDonald’s in California,” Jerry says. The kidney-shaped sign proclaiming the 24-hour service still stands at the corner. For countless regulars wanting a late-night snack or a hearty meal, Abel’s has been a San Antonio tradition.
It’s not uncommon for tables to be surrounded by several generations devouring heaping plates of steaming food. There is something on the menu to satisfy nearly every craving with a list of steaks, seafood, and Mexican food. The daily specials read like a table of contents from a Betty Crocker cookbook. The rotating list of offerings includes Salisbury steak, baked hen with dressing, pot roast, chicken and dumplings, salmon croquettes, and roast turkey. Everything is served with fresh hot rolls handmade and baked at the restaurant.
Of all the menu items, fried chicken is the house specialty. Each piece is covered with a golden brown crust spotted with big flakes of black pepper holding in a steaming hot center of meat dripping with a thin chicken broth. “We had to develop our recipe over time through trial and error,” Abel says. “It kind of evolved as we tried to please everybody.”
The elder Abel knew a thing or two about fried chicken and he learned it from the master. Abel’s was one of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in Texas (Jerry Abel thinks the first was in Austin) and the first to hold the franchise in San Antonio.
Chicken used to be more of an ordeal to cook and more expensive, too, Abel says. Colonel Harland Sanders and the deep fryer changed the restaurant business. The deep fryer took the chicken out of the skillet and removed the hassle of cooking single pieces or a dozen pieces at once. The Colonel put it all together. Not only did he come up with a secret recipe of herbs and spices, but he developed a whole system of cooking, Abel says.
When Sanders sold his business in 1964 to a group of investors for $2 million dollars, the Abels opted out of the franchise. The new owners wanted a bigger cut of the restaurant’s profits and the some of their mandatory products weren’t up to the Earl Abel’s standards. That’s when he developed his own secret recipe. Over the years the recipe has changed a little and become healthier with the use of canola oil in the big vats in the kitchen.
Earl Abel came to San Antonio as a young man in 1921 to play the organ for the silent movies at the then-new Texas Theater in downtown. When the talkie movies came out around 1930, the organists were soon out of a job.
It was during the depression when Earl opened his first little cafe. “He always said he went into the food business so that at least he wouldn’t starve,” Jerry says. Along with good food and Earl’s friendly presence, the chain of lunch counters grew until the outbreak of World War II.
“We have married couples come back who had their first date here in the 1940s,” Abel says. San Antonio being a military town for so long has helped to spread Abel’s reputation around the world. Recently a guy from Australia stopped in who had been stationed at an area Air Force base during the war for an old-fashioned American meal.
Over the years the building has expanded to accommodate the steady stream of regular customers. A major remodeling in 1950 turned the curved outside wall into an interior wall and added two new dining rooms. The “To Go” annex was added in 1958, and two more dining rooms and an Art Deco exterior in 1960.
The decor is decidedly early-American coffee shop, with patterned wallpaper and copies of dark still life paintings. The waitstaff, with their uniforms and thick-soled shoes, are generally the age of your mother, as long as you’re old enough to drive. The place is unapologetically old-fashioned, letting the good home cooking speak for itself.
There might not be anything fancy about the meat loaf or open-faced roast beef sandwiches smothered in brown gravy, but it is the quintessential comfort food. If you have any room left, top off a meal with a thick milkshake or try a piece of Abel’s famous, fresh-baked pies.
Open 24 hours, Earl Abel’s Coffee Shop is open seven days a week, year-round, at 4200 Broadway. For more information, call 210/822-3358.
Coming up this weekend …
Night in Old San Antonio along the River Walk and in the La Villita National Historic District presents fun, food, and culture for one low price, April 24-27. 210/226-5188 or www.saconservation.org.
King William Fair in San Antonio south of downtown is a fun neighborhood gathering with concerts, street vendors, and lots of food, April 26. 210/271-3247.
Bowie Street Blues Festival sponsored by the Institute of Texan Cultures features a day of laid-back music, April 29. 210/458-2300 or www.texancultures.utsa.edu.
Coming up …
East Texas Wildflower Trail centered in Henderson offers maps to scenic back roads that are lined with a surprising rainbow of flowers besides bluebonnets. Special events are planned along the routes on each weekend of May. 903/657-5528 or www.hendersontx.com.
This article appears in April 27 • 2001.
