Kyrene School letting out so you could attend the State and County Fair. Probably because most of the kids had projects entered and wouldnt come to school anyway.
I too remember the Big Apple and how fun it was, including the sawdust on the floors. We'd go there after the basketball games. I also remember my eyes burning in the fabric store next to El Rancho too.
Larry,
I could see the Vet's face that I think you're talking about, but couldn't remember his name either. I called my Mom and she remembered. Dr. Howell Hood. He had dark hair with a beard and mustache. Is that the one? He's the one that made the house call when our dog, Spooky got hit by a car. I think I remember him being one of the Vet's at the Zoo too. Was that the guy you were thinking of?
Diane
I remember the sawdust, the desertrama inn the front of the Apple, the hughe hamburgers and fries, but come on it was the waitress cowgirls with the guns on their hips, and the tight jeans.
And I'll bet the guns didn't have those stupid orange plastic thingies on the ends of the barrels. With those guns, the girls were quite . . . arresting.
Hi Carolyn,
I remember the Sewing Basket next to El Rancho...and, my eyes watered, too.....from the sizing in the fabric I was told (chemicals I am sure). I remember riding my bike from Mill and Southern where we lived to the old Tempe Library in downtown Tempe on the east side of MIll, but I cannot recall exactly where it was. It was in an old house and I loved roaming from room to room to find books to take home. It was never the same after it was moved south, first to Danelle Plaza, then to its current location. When I was at ASU I worked for MaBell directory assistance and we worked on E. 5th Street in what I believe is still the Trails building. That was when we still looked numbers up in an actual phone book and answered to the name of 'information'. I have lived in Tempe since I was nine years old and I have seen so many gradual changes I often find it hard to create the picture of Tempe long ago. It is fun to see the old Tempe recreated through communal recollections. Didn't Mike Delamater write a song to lament the changes ...for one of the earlier reunions?
And I'll bet the guns didn't have those stupid orange plastic thingies on the ends of the barrels. With those guns, the girls were quite . . . arresting.
Larry: They could've arrested me anytime, for as long as it would take them.
Bill Johnson's -- They had these jars of yellow peppers on each table. We'd go when my grandmother came to visit, and she, my mom and dad would eat them, pretty much emptying the jar, before the meal came. I wondered how they could stand it.
Pretty much everything I eat except Raisin Bran gets hotsauce now. It just took a while for the gene to germinate.
Which reminds me that about ten years ago my wife, knowing I like beer and hot stuff, bought me a six pack of chili beer brewed in Cave Creek. It was awful, ruining what was originally probably a good beer, and good chilis.
Lets go back a little farther: 48th street between Transmission (now named University) and the canal (half way to Broadway) was a dirt road SRP easement through my Grand Fathers farm.
We had a county address( RT 2 Box 1055 Phx AZ.) There was a sign across the
street that said 'Welcome to Phoenix population 100,000'. That sign made a
great backboard for my basketball hoop!!!
When Phoenix finally annexed us, We moved our mail boxes to the East side of
of 48th st, so we could have a Tempe address
Jerry Kerr, Yes I remember the Knothole section at ASU. Thats where I fell madly
in love with Brenda Koen, the north bleachers were freezing cold at a game and
Brenda had a huge fluffy coat. Some how I got in there with with her, saved my
ass! Thank you Brenda also.
We always bought shoes and levi's from the Boston store
At ASU, I did a little studding at the HUT, bar South from Monte's (I meant studying)
All this talk about Bill Johnson's Big Apple makes me laugh.
Back in the day, it was THE place to go.
Today, it's just in a rundown part of town.
However, I met my cousin there for breakfast last week (his idea, not mine) and was pleasantly surprised at everything there. Food was good. Waitresses are still dressed for the rodeo, no hot peppers in sight, though. Sawdust on the floor. Atmosphere reminds me of the Phoenix of my childhood.
'Apple' of His Eye: Family Keeps Restaurant Pioneer Bill Johnson's Big Dream Alive
Barbara Yost
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 19, 2006 12:00 AM
Bill Johnson blew into town in 1955, driving a white convertible Cadillac with steer horns on the hood and an attitude behind the wheel. Every time he stopped, a friend would open the door and announce to anyone within hearing distance, 'This is Bill Johnson.'
That was Bill Johnson - larger-than-life personality, trapeze artist, master showman, radio host, friend to country-and-Western stars. He also opened, in 1956, what has become one of the longest-operating restaurants in the Valley.
Bill Johnson's Big Apple turns 50 this year, and the veteran barbecue restaurant has hardly missed a beat since it sprang up on the outskirts of Phoenix - 36th and Van Buren streets. When the place opened, its neighbors were the cattle at the stockyards next door and the shy couple who lived at Tovrea Castle.
'Phoenix was a little cow town back then,' said Johnson's 85-year-old widow, Gene.
Yet Valley residents found their way to what Johnson's daughter and company president, Dena Cameron, 69, calls 'Phoenix's first theme restaurant.'
The rustic interior was hung with Western memorabilia. Servers dressed in cowboy gear. The sign out front was a giant steer head with the invitation, 'Let's Eat.' The menu was simple: burgers, steaks, ribs. Entrée salads and chicken came later.
Gene Johnson's succulent barbecue and homemade deep-dish apple pie brought cowboys from the stockyards and nearby stables, and anyone else in town who liked the entertainment as much as they liked the food.
Bill Johnson would work the room with a portable microphone, dropping by patrons' tables, putting them on live radio, first on KPHO and then on KTAR.
'My dad was the showman, and my mom was the brains,' said son Johnny Johnson, 63, one of the four siblings who own and operate six Valley Bill Johnson's restaurants. He's wearing the garb and badge of an Old West sheriff. He looks born for the role.
Circus romance
Gene Golden was in her early teens, living in Healdton, Okla., when the circus came to town. Admission was only a quarter, Gene said, but it was enough to find the man of her dreams, an 18-year-old 'catcher' in a trapeze act.
'He was handsome, so talented,' Gene remembered.
When the circus left town, Bill Johnson stayed and courted Gene despite her parents' objections. That was 1934, the depths of the Depression. He was her first, and last, boyfriend. They married two years later.
Bill Johnson had big dreams. In 1939, the couple moved to Compton, Calif., where he took a job at the shipyards and Gene worked in a cannery. Gene also worked as a carhop and learned business skills from the manager. She put that knowledge to good use when the Johnsons opened Gene's Original Wood Pit B-B-Q, based on her recipe for barbecue sauce.
The restaurant was down the street from Town Hall Party, a music hall where, from 1952 to 1961, country music stars performed every Saturday night. After the show, they wandered down to Gene's restaurant and record store. The Johnsons got to know all the country legends, from Tex Ritter to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
Bill Johnson hosted a radio show and interviewed his friends while spinning their platters.
'It was good promotion for them and us,' Cameron said.
When Johnny Johnson's asthma worsened, the family moved to the Arizona desert. Bill liked to call the plot of land he bought for his restaurant 'where the pavement ends and the Old West begins.' In fact, it was where the city ended - the last outpost until Tempe.
The restaurant was successful from Day 1, Gene said. 'This was the restaurant for several years.'
'Delightful guy'
Bill started a radio show in a back corner of the Big Apple, named for his favorite 1920s dance craze. When he wasn't roaming the dining room with a microphone, he was playing host to friends from the Town Hall Party days.
Bill was in his element. Local singers Waylon Jennings, Marty Robbins and Wayne Newton stopped by. So did Ritter, Rogers and Evans, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens (Johnny Johnson still has the guitar Owens gave him), children's-TV show hosts Wallace and Ladmo, as well as such politicians as Barry Goldwater and a string of governors.
'Only Bill Johnson, Camelback Mountain and I have been here 50 years,' joked Pat McMahon, a guest on Bill's radio show in the mid-'60s.
McMahon appeared on The Wallace and Ladmo Show, which began in 1954, and today hosts TV and radio programs.
'I remember he was a delightful guy,' McMahon said of Bill Johnson. 'He really enjoyed the community. He had a sense of fun, of Western entertainment.'
When the Johnson children were old enough, they joined the business.
Cameron started at age 19, handling the administrative duties that she continues today.
'It was the only thing I knew,' she said.
For all his pizzazz, Bill Johnson was a stern man who set high standards, Cameron said. But he had a great sense of humor, illustrated in Johnny Johnson's favorite story.
As a teen, Johnny was assigned to greet customers at the door. His dad would come by every day and ask, 'Do you want to dance?' One day Johnny said yes.
The dad swept the boy off his feet, waltzed him around the crowded restaurant and back to the entrance, dipped him back, deposited a big kiss on his forehead and said, 'Thank you!'
'I was so embarrassed,' Johnny said. 'The laughter took 10 minutes to die down.'
Suddenly gone
Tragically, the man with dreams of being a star died of an aneurysm in 1966 at age 49. Bill Johnson had been a robust man, a health advocate before it was trendy. He kept fit in a workout room at the back of the restaurant. Death came quickly.
'It was something no one expected. It was a big shock,' Johnny Johnson said. 'He always said he'd outlive us all, and I believed it.'
Gene Johnson never doubted the family could carry on the business. Though daunted by his father's reputation, Johnny took over the radio show. He became comfortable in the job, and continued until KTAR went to an all-news format in 1974.
Gene continued to run the kitchen.
Her children, and now grandchildren, have taken charge of the company. Cameron's daughter, Danielle Hanson, is director of marketing. In all, 15 family members are involved in day-to-day operations.
Meeting challenges
Phoenix has changed dramatically in the past half-century. Bill Johnson's Big Apple has faced many challenges but overcome each one.
It began with cynics who said the original location was too remote to attract customers. They were wrong.
In 1961, Ramada Inn built its first grand hotel next door on East Van Buren Street, complete with dining room. Critics said the Big Apple was doomed.
Bill Johnson expanded, and business exploded.
In 1963, the Johnsons opened El Diablo, a Mexican restaurant at 32nd and Van Buren streets. It lasted 20 years but closed in 1983 when the city kept nibbling away at parking space.
Bill Johnson's Big Apple West opened at 31st Avenue and Indian School Road in 1974. There are now Big Apples in the northwest Valley, Arrowhead, Goodyear and Mesa.
At one time, Van Buren was the center of a high-end hotel strip. Over the years it became a depressed area, hundreds more restaurants opened in the Valley and Bill Johnson's suffered.
'When we opened, there was no competition. We owned the world,' Cameron said. 'Now we own a piece of it.'
The bustling Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has re-energized business. The upcoming light-rail line along Washington Street promises to bring more customers. Gateway Community College has built a campus nearby.
Phoenix is no longer a cow town. But the man who insisted on pushing the city's limits in its infancy is still the spirit of the Big Apple.
'Not a day goes by that I don't think of him,' Johnny said.
The Big Apple was quite a spot. One night my partner and I were eating dinner on our 30 minute dinner break. An elderly man across from our table had a heart attack and fell to the floor. We rushed into action and jump started the old guy and kept him alive until the fire department arrived to the cheers of a roaring crowd. As we got up from the sawdust covered floor and headed back to our table to finish our dinner, we found our food had been cleared and two people sitting where we'd been minutes before. The waitress was kind enough to have left our check on the edge of the table. That's my Big Apple memory.
There was also Leather Smith and Lace on Mill.
Seattle Pilots Ball Field So. of the T-Butte. Lots of Concerts there. I saw Janis Joplin, Strawberry Alarm, Crosby Stills & Nash.
My Parents sold their house, because of the Concerts. This made me laugh.
Shooting my 16 gauge in the field accross from Holdeman. It was Legal.
Going to The Underground Movies at Valley Art.
My first Pair of Beatle Boots, and listening to KRIZ on my Transistor Radio.
My Brotherinlaw getting his tool box stolen at Food City So. Phx.
Larry getting back from Vacation.
Larry-Bashas owns Food City and they went Chapter 11 last week, I think they are closing 7 or all of the Food Citys. You live in Seattle.
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