Green’s Sausage House is the shopping mall of Zabcikville. The long, low, ranch-house-style building surrounded by fields on TX-53 is a cafe, bakery, meat market, deer processor, grocery store, and if you include the gimme caps, a haberdashery.
You wouldn’t be faulted if you hadn’t heard of the ghost town of Zabcikville. At best, the settlement 10 miles east of Temple was never very big. The area was settled by Czech and German farmers around the time Texas became a state in 1845. Besides only having a few residents, according to Patricia Benoit of the Temple Daily Telegram, the name of the town changed with the owner of the only store in town. Over the years it was known as Kocenda, Lugoville, and Marekville.
In 1923, Frank Zabcik bought the saloon and general store, and attached his name to the community. When the highway was built in 1932, he added a stucco service station and general store to the town. He also started a cafe across the road. Jerome and Della Green began running the cafe for Zabcik in 1946. Today, their sons, Marvin and Charles, continue the tradition of making sausages, slicing steaks, baking kolaches, and bottling dozens of kinds of pickles and sauces.
The restaurant attracts a loyal following of locals and folks just passing through. “A lot of people stop coming or going to the VA hospital in Temple,” the waitress said. “It’s either their first or last chance to get a good meal.”
Green’s Sausage House is at 16483 TX-53, technically in Temple. The cafe and market are open daily except Sunday. For their hours, go to www.greenssausagehouse.com.
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This article appears in February 24 • 2017.
