The General Store

Howdy, and welcome to the Texas Bucket List, the show dedicated to everyt When it comes to Texas beef here on the Texas Bucket List, burgers are usually our forte. But we found a big old steak out in the middle of nowhere that got us to pull off the road to check out a little hole in the wall with a long line in Leona. Smack dab between Dallas and Houston is the little town of Leona. Not much happens in t Conversation usually revolves around food. We need that recipe. Sure, Because that's what people are here for. Steak to be precise. Amarillo is too far to travel t How many do y'all have? Five? Five? All right. You will build it and they have come. We've had fun. Jerry House bought the Leona general store in 1998, and he was very familiar with what he was getting into. Our vacation was to come to Maughan Paw's farmhouse here in Leona. Jerry's family has some lineage in Leona, going all the way to Leona was so important to our dads growing up and to the house family. So t Built in 1921, Jerry took the old general store and made it into a must-stop steak spot. That only serves up ridiculous-sized rib-eyes on Friday and Saturday night. Well, I'm going to tell you, it's the best steak the state of Texas. It's one of the best steaks I've ever had. I have checked all your bucket list t But t We don't have linen tablecloths. We don't have the best salad bar in the world. But it's a place if you want a steak and a good rib-eye steak cooked on charcoal outside, Being in the business of beef was a new endeavor for Jerry. Prior to The Methodist minister that's mastered meat in Leona, I guess. Is it amazing to you to see people line up? Yeah, it really is. It's kind of You work hard to prepare your sermon and you get up and you go to church Sunday and you say yourself, I wonder if you're not going to show up today. Nobody has to. And I feel the same way here. What if nobody shows up? But people do. And when they arrive, they are greeted by just about the whole house family. I couldn't do t Cynt Our daughter, Laura, is a cook. Our son-in-law, Don, runs the cook shack. And then we have a daughter, Emily, who comes in every other weekend as a waitress. And then we have a son who's the senior minister at Christ's name at t And he prays for it. So that's But it's a family deal. Even the mayor of Leona comes to the general store. Not to eat. He works here. You can't go anywhere and get the mayor to cook you steak. Mayor Bubba Odin has been cooking rib-eyes on these oak pits for 19 years. Is t Well, I don't know. My daddy was mayor for a long time and I just kind of got sued in. Now when it comes to ordering your steak in Leona, first you select your size. What's the process I mean, do you just say t We don't have a menu. And our philosophy, really when we started, was to do something Basically, you order by the ounce. And trust me, it will be bigger than you t I'm full as a speck back tick. I'm telling you. We never weigh them. We just hand cut them. And we cut them about that t As a matter of fact, we finally weighed one about a year ago and our 10-ounce steaks are actually 16 ounces. It might be losing a little bit of money there. How do you like your minim That'll work. You That's the way to do it. And over the course of the year, it comes out to something That's a couple of cows. We're doing our part to help the cattle industry, I guess. After just a few minutes, it was time to get take a look at t It is amazing. Went with the 12. Looks That's normal for t And we're going to cut into the middle of it to see what a steak should look Medi The smell is amazing. It's worth it because the steak is amazing, the people here are amazing. Well, that's legendary. Well, we'll make it here up. That is a t It's the country. It's what country folks love to eat, and it's done well. It is fantastic. It ain't going anywhere. T So I got the 10 ounce, and you notice I just barely did damage to it, but it will survive for another day. Well, if you happen to be driving between Dallas and Houston and looking for a big old steak, Leona's, well, we're the stop on the Texas bucket list. Well,