Once in a generation
Not only was the Cypress Creek Cafe a place to hear new music and experience performances by fine musicians, it was a dependable place for good food and drink, and it was a social anchor for the community.
The CCC was the place for the locals to sit down for breakfast, meetup for lunch and to celebrate the milestones – birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and retirements. Groups gathered over weekly meals, singles met for first dates, couples came to dance, and everyone else came because their friends – and maybe someone new – would be there. People came because nearly every week there was always something to look forward to, facilitated by good music and genuine camaraderie.
“Walking into the CCC was like walking into ‘Cheers.’ It was open to anyone — doctors, lawyers — everyone was welcome,” said Jim Venable.
“Everyone came because they loved the people who owned it and they loved the way they ran it. It was a great atmosphere for everybody. There was no racial stuff, no snobbery and no politics,” said Dave “Monk” Montgomery, a regular, who, like several others, was honored with a brass plaque with his name on it at “his” seat at the bar.
Tiffany Adams, who began working there at 14, likes to joke that Monk Montgomery was the “unofficial bouncer,” who provided protection when the odd customer crossed the line. “Most of the time all he had to do was stand behind one of us and the annoying person got the message.”
Bruce said, “Yes, we had quite a few memorable patrons of the cafe and club like Monk Montgomery, Perry Cook, Pokey and Pat Rehmet, Jim Venable, Danny and Lois Hick- man, Joe Desormeaux – it’s really impossible to list them all there are so many.”
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Danny Hickman met the Calkin brothers soon after the cafe opened. He was a “finish” carpenter and he and James Strickland built the bar inside and laid down the dance floor.
“I immediately became involved,” Danny said. “I worked the door and as a bar back, not because I was a staff member, but because Bruce and Dave and I were like brothers.” Danny, it turns out, became one of “The Passions.”
Jim Venable, also a member, remembers it this way. “I worked with Danny Hickman for a while doing woodworking. Sometime during the years, Danny, Bruce and I formed a singing group called “The Passions.” We would sing once a year every Halloween. I borrowed white tuxes from the Wimberley Players wardrobe. The song, “Papa was a Rolling Stone,” by the Temptations was a big hit then and we might have styled ourselves after them with the tuxes.”
Sometimes, instead of the white tuxes, they performed in zany costumes.
Danny remembers, “One year I came as a blind vacuum cleaner salesman. By the end of the night, someone bought the vacuum cleaner and took it home.”
Like other regulars, he joined the CCC softball team, competing against teams like the Fire Ants, the Wimberley Fire Fighters’ team.
His wife Lois remembers, “We have a ton of family memories from Cypress Creek Cafe. It was a place you could take your kids to because everyone helped out. When our son Casey was born, Dave Calkins was named as his godfather. On some nights we slept with the kids in the B & B upstairs. And when baby monitors first came out, we’d put the baby down for a nap and listen for him downstairs through the monitor.”
Sacred Ground
The impact of the Cypress Creek Cafe was felt throughout the community in other ways, too.
Amy Cartee-Cox, who owns A Studio Z along with her husband, Russell Cox was a young artist and graphic designer when Bruce asked her to create a design for Crawfish Boil.
“Bruce wanted a drawing of a crawfish with steer horns and the slogan, “Steer Me Right.”
“I had two jobs at the time, “TEED Shirts” in the art department and “Babes” on 6 Street in Austin. The restaurant next door to Babes was nice enough to give me one crawfish to use for art reference. I’d never drawn a crawfish until this moment. It was the first of many tee designs I did for CCC. I am thankful to Bruce Calkins for helping me get started as an artist.”
It was one of the few places to meet “the One.”
Wimberley musician Marvin Bottera posted on Tiffany Adams’ Facebook page, CCC Memories, “So many great relationships started at CCC. It’s where my wife, Laura, and I met. I was so fortunate to play there many times. My band, “Broken Glass,” played the night before Laura and I got married on December 15, 2013. I believe it was Temple Ray who created the sign that week that advertised upcoming acts and honored us with the “Laura –heart– Marvin drawing.”
Susan Cervenka also posted, “I met my husband, Joshua, at CCC waiting tables – and met many of my lifelong friends there too.”
Amy Cartee-Cox posted, “Russell and I met at CCC New Years Eve Eve, 1993. I was there for a going away party for one of my co-workers at the tee shirt shop and Russell walked in with a woman. I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen, but assumed he was married or in a relationship with her so didn’t pay much attention to him.
I went up to the bar to get another adult beverage and he walked up next to me and offered to buy my drink. I was floored and said “Won’t your wife be mad?” To which he said “WIFE? That’s my sister!” And he thought I was on a date with my coworker, so we cleared all of that up and he asked me out on our first date, the next night on New Year’s Eve. The rest, as they say, is history! We’ve been happily married now for 29 years.”
“It was through Bruce that I met my wife Jan, on a blind date, and we’ve been married 38 years. We became really close — me and Jan, Danny and Lois, and when Mardee came along in 1986, Bruce and Mardee,” said Jim Venable.
The Cypress Creek Cafe was, for all those who embraced it, a once in a generation phenomenon. The Calkin brothers ushered in new music, new events and experiences that enriched the community, instead of tearing it down. The drive, Bruce said, was not to make a ton of money, but to create a place to belong and it didn’t take long for those who worked and played there to consider it “theirs.” It enlarged a tight knit community that was ready to embrace it. For 25 years it thrived for all of the right reasons and left an indelible mark on all who loved it.
Perhaps Monk Montgomery expressed the CCC’s impact best.
“The Cypress Creek Cafe was sacred ground to us. It was like a huge stone that fell into water. When it fell, it created huge ripples that reached far, far out and they affected many lives. It was sacred ground.”
