Romeos, Without Our Juliets

Tuesday evenings are reserved for us, the ROMEOs – Retired Old Men Eating Out. On Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning, Beatle (aka Marvin Beasley) sends a text message stating, “Meet at 6:30 at XX Restaurant. Who’s coming? LMK.” And that’s where the ROMEOs will dine.

It all started around 14 years ago when Howie Derman and Alan Fisherman went out to eat at Garson, a Persian restaurant on Hillcroft. Their wives were not cooking dinner because they were out playing mah jongg. The outing was so pleasing that soon other mah jongg husbands facing the prospect of cooking their own dinners joined Alan and Howie. I was invited by Howie soon after the Garson outing. It did not take long before the group increased to the current size – 13-15 guys. That included some men whose wives did not leave them to play mah jongg, but we let them join anyway. 

We were not always known as the ROMEOs. We used to enjoy eating at Rays BBQ Shack on Old Spanish Trail when it was in a Shell gas station. On our second or third visit there, the spirited lady at the counter taking orders greeted us with “Here come the ROMEOs.” And that has been our name ever since. Rays is still on OST, but it is in a new building now, so you have to go elsewhere if you also need gasoline. 

An early favorite restaurant of ours was Kelley’s Country Cookin’ on Park Place Blvd. near Hobby Airport. Back then a one-pound hamburger was $8.95, and it could feed several. Of course, no Kelley’s dinner was complete without Frito Pie. This was a foreign dish to those of us born north of the Mason-Dixon line. The beauty of Kelley’s was that we could all sit at a huge round table, share a bunch of items, eat enough to feel stuffed, and end up paying less than $10 each. The prices at Kelley’s are a bit higher now, and we are older and like to eat closer to home. Today’s ROMEOs tend to eat in Bellaire, Meyerland, and maybe as far away as the Medical Center or Montrose area.  

Over the years, we have dined at around 95 different places, maybe more. A few establishments were one-time visits eliminated from our list due to less-than-happy experiences. And some have since closed, unfortunately. 

Roadster Grill was a favorite dining establishment of ours. It was a cozy place, and it was quiet enough so that even those of us with hearing aids could follow the erudite conversations. It closed a few years back, and we get a horrifying feeling as we drive by the old location on Bellaire and see that it is now, of all things, a Smoothie King.

Several years ago, we read that the best fried chicken in town was at Himalaya Restaurant, an Indian restaurant on Hillcroft. We ordered the chicken, but the other items on the menu looked too spicy for our elderly tongues. Howie asked the owner who was taking our order if we could have our dishes less spicy. He said that was not possible. If we wanted to eat his food, we had to accept it as it was offered. The chicken was actually good, but the other dishes . . . Oh my, our Maalox-laced stomachs remember that night.

Barbecue is always a safe choice for ROMEOs. Aside from Rays, we have often been to Goode Company, The Pit Room, Pappas Bar-B-Q on the Southwest Freeway, Luling BBQ, and Hickory Hollow. Blood Brothers in the Bellaire triangle is only open for lunch most days, sadly.

Pizza, you say. Of course, that is a ROMEO staple. Star Pizza is one of our favorite hangouts. We order a few pizzas to fit the general taste requirements of the attendees, and we add salads so that we can feel as if we have had a healthy meal. It seems that no matter how much we order, there are only one or two pieces of pizza remaining. Those go home in a take-out box to a lucky wife.

Julia Child observed, “People who love to eat are always the best people.” I wonder what she would have thought about Buffalo Wild Wings or about us for eating there. Much like Star Pizza, the mountain of different flavored wings is complemented by celery and carrot sticks so that the outing qualifies for a salubrious one. And, of course, we are “the best people” as we stuff our elderly selves and laugh at geriatric jokes. The Irish say, “Laughter is brightest in the place where food is good.” Well, the laughter is certainly bright.

So, if you happen to dine at a place where you see a table of gray-haired and no-haired men (a few with hearing aids) talking about sports, cruises, old times, grandchildren, maybe politics, or simply telling jokes, that’s us, the ROMEOs. Stop by and say hi.