Mary’s Cafe sits on Highway 16 on the south side of Strawn, a Palo Pinto County town of about 600 people. Most days the parking lot is full of pickups and motorcycles, and the extra cars park across the road. People drive in from Fort Worth, Abilene and well beyond for one dish, the chicken fried steak.
With Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day coming up on Oct. 26, this is a good week to make the trip.
Mary Tretter grew up in Strawn. Her first job, after eighth grade, was at the only other restaurant in town. In 1984 she started washing dishes at a cafe on the same spot called the Polka Dot, and by 18 she was waiting tables there. In 1986, as a single mother, she bought the place and renamed it Mary’s Cafe.
The early years were lean. Tretter has said she used to hope the restaurant across the street would send its overflow her way, and a night with five or six tables felt like a good one.
The original building was a 1920s service station. As business grew, she replaced the small diner with the larger, multiroom cafe that stands there today. She brought the front door from the old diner over to the new building for good luck.
What makes the chicken fried steak at Mary’s different is how it is cooked. It goes on the flattop, not into a deep fryer. Tretter cooks each one with melted butter and a metal spatula, and the thin breading browns slowly while the beef stays tender. The chicken fried chicken is the only one that gets deep fried.
The steak comes in small, medium and large. The small is plenty for most people. The large covers the whole plate, so it is served on a plate by itself, and Tretter has said she likes customers to see exactly what they are getting.
The cream gravy comes in a bowl on the side. It is peppery and rich, and serving it separately keeps the crust crisp until you are ready for it. Order the mashed potatoes, which are made from real potatoes and come in a generous portion. The volume here is remarkable for a small-town cafe. A few years ago, Mary’s was going through more than 50,000 pounds of chicken fried steak and more than 200,000 pounds of potatoes a year.
The rest of the menu is classic Texas country cooking. There are calf fries, chicken livers, gizzards, fried green tomatoes, pork chops, hamburger steak, and cheese enchiladas with rice and beans. The two-pound burger takes about 30 minutes to cook and is easily shared.
Everything is cooked to order, so weekends can mean a wait. Weekday afternoons are usually calmer. For all the visitors, Mary’s is still a gathering place for Strawn. Some local groups have met there every week for years. Family photos hang on the walls, and Tretter describes many of her regulars as family.
Television has brought some new faces, too. In the second season of Landman, in the episode “Forever Is an Instant,” Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris and Sam Elliott’s T.L. stop at Mary’s for lunch. Two episodes later, T.L. is wearing a Mary’s Cafe shirt.
There is more reason than ever to spend the day. Palo Pinto Mountains State Park opened on March 1, the first new state park in North Texas in more than 25 years. It covers 4,871 acres about four miles west of town, including 90-acre Tucker Lake, which supplies Strawn’s water. Reservations are strongly recommended. A morning hike and a late lunch at Mary’s make for an easy fall day trip.
Strawn has a long history. Rancher and banker Stephen Bethel Strawn founded the town around 1880 to bring the Texas and Pacific Railway through, and the area was once one of the busiest coal regions in Texas. His name also lives on underground. Geologists call the oil-bearing rock beneath the county the Strawn formation, which makes a show about the oil business stopping here for lunch feel right at home.
Mary’s Cafe, 119 Grant Ave., Strawn. 254-672-5741. Open daily at 11 a.m., closing at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
