Thanksgiving always falls on the fourth Thursday in November – except at the Dun-Bar Restaurant in San Angelo.
Oh, they’re always open on Thanksgiving Day, but every Sunday also seems like Thanksgiving, with turkey, dressing, and all the trimmings served all day. Even with all that Thanksgiving food available on Sundays year-round, the actual Thanksgiving Day is popular too, with people lining up as early as 10 a.m. to get an early start.
“As soon as someone gets up, another one sits down,” said Charlie Blanek, who owns the business that has been in his family since 1959.
The family lived in Sterling City, about 40 miles northwest of San Angelo, when Joe Blanek was asked by the builders of the new restaurant and motel to help out for a month. Joe owned the Log Cabin Steak House in Sterling City, but agreed to help with the new restaurant, too.
The rest is Blanek family history, as Joe and Margaret Blanek ended up owning the San Angelo restaurant and the motel, which now has 90 rooms. An apartment complex, with 44 units, was added later.
All the Blanek children—Bill, Kenny, Sherri, and Charlie—worked in the family business growing up. Today, “big brother” Bill is involved, and Charlie’s wife, Isabel, runs the motel and apartments. But they hardly run the businesses alone. Many of the employees have worked at Dun-Bar for years. One woman has been on board 64 years. “She helped her mama when she was in high school,” Charlie said.
The business takes its name from the two men who built it and asked Joe Blanek to “help out for a month,” John Duncan and John Barrows. The men built the restaurant, and a 40-room motel first and then just kept adding to it. “They just kept building until they got the whole block built up,” Charlie said.
Joe Blanek died in 2005 but his wife, Margaret, who is 96, still comes by to help out some. A story in the San Angelo Standard-Times in March 2018 noted that just before her 90th birthday, Margaret was “sporting a red apron and red lipstick” and helping the waitresses clear and set tables in the restaurant. Now at 96, Margaret has slowed down some but still chips in. “Most Sunday mornings, she makes the dressing,” Charlie said.
The restaurant opens at 6 a.m. seven days a week for a traditional breakfast of bacon, eggs, omelets, and pancakes. It closes at 9 p.m. daily. The only break the family gets is when the restaurant closes a few days before Christmas each year and reopens in mid-January.
The only holidays the restaurant is closed are Christmas and New Year’s. Everyone spends those days recuperating from all the pre-Thanksgiving orders and Thanksgiving Day business. Just before opening up again in mid-January, Charlie and the employees thoroughly clean the restaurant and make sure all the equipment is up and running.
Charlie says the restaurant continues to be as popular as when it opened because the food they serve is “just good old home cooking.” Many of the guests are longtime customers, including a couple who requested a particular table be reserved for the 50th anniversary of their first date – at that very same table. Although many of the customers are older, they sometimes bring younger folks with them. “If they ever bring their grandkids, they come back and bring more with them,” Charlie said.
When Charlie’s two daughters were growing up, they were involved with the businesses, but as adults, one is a registered nurse in Brady and the other is in real estate and owns the weekly newspaper in Menard.
With no one to pass the Dun-Bar businesses down to, Charlie is counting on one of the loyal customers, or maybe someone with a good eye for business, to one day buy them. “Hopefully,” he said, “somebody will come along that wants to see it keep going.”
