It was a South Texas landmark on Highway 77 at Robstown. Wednesday night a suspected electrical fire burned this eatery to the ground. Sixty customers still eating were quickly ushered out of the building. A crowd of people gathered to sadly watch the place burn to ashes.
Most of us have eaten there, on the butcher paper used for a plate. It was all good but the ribs were special. The rich and famous, unknown and near-broke, have made a Cotten's stop. They had been in business since 1947 when a beer joint was converted to a barbecue roadhouse. You got no printed menu in Cotten's. At one time they didn't take a check. Ann found herself begging them to take one as she got caught there without cash or a credit card. They relented so she avoided the kitchen duty. There wouldn't have been any dishes to wash.
Tour buses stopped regularly. Among the celebrity folks having eaten there were: Tony Romo, Roger Staubach, Hillary Clinton, Willie Nelson, Lyndon Johnson, and former Texas governor,
Bill Clements. I am sure many many more dropped in and out. At one time or another all of Ann's brothers ate there. It was a popular stop for folks in the oilfield business. At times helicopters would drop down in the highway median, allowing important passengers to go into Joe Cotten's.
I never failed to go there without seeing someone I knew. Some of them knew me. Today the barbecue is burned beyond use. The pickles are pickled. The beans are blackened. The relic penny and nickel machines have only melted coins in them. Cotten's is a blackened scar on 77, on the way to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. It was a one-of-a-kind place that will be missed.
