1. April 1, 1978
Hippies Dick Terry and Dave Arnsberger were grousing about the proliferation of chili cook-offs and hit on a novel idea. “Anybody can cook chili. Making something like SPAM® taste good, now that would be a real challenge,” says Dick Terry. “Yeah,” says Arnsberger, “let’s have a SPAM® cook-off and call it, uh … SPAMARAMA! I bet we could get George Majewski [the original owner of Soap Creek Saloon] to let us have it at Soap Creek on April Fool’s Day.” And so the ultimate goofy Austin bar contest was born. And the rest, as they say, is history.This article appears in March 31 • 2000.

