By Robert Morgan | Published Thursday, October 25, 2007
I was told a few weeks ago that a small eatery was opening soon in Chico. With Subway and Chico Mart the evening options, it really came as no surprise that someone took a chance.
I was told a few weeks ago that a small eatery was opening soon in Chico. With Subway and Chico Mart the evening options, it really came as no surprise that someone took a chance.
In fact, my family and I looked for somewhere to eat after a volleyball match a month ago but there were no options for me. I told my wife that the downtown square, which needed a few tumbleweeds blowing across the street to make it picture perfect, was literally a ghost town by 7 p.m.
There was not a car to be found or a person to been seen. The only sound was the howl of the wind blowing through some of the dilapidated structures.
After talking to a few of the locals, I quickly discovered that the place I had heard about was a week away from opening. And last Monday, the Dragon Cafe opened its doors for business just a couple of blocks from downtown at the corner of Highway 101 and Maginnis.
We are suckers for small, hometown restaurants, so we agreed to plan dinner around the cafe the week of its opening. Our visit came on the third day of business, and it was worth dodging every rock truck along the way.
The Dragons cafe is decked out in high school memorabilia that represents all the sports at Chico High School. Whether it's football, basketball, cheerleading or golf, every sport from many decades serves as the decor in this hometown eatery.
The service was good and I was happy to see that local students were hired to add to the high-school flare. The food was great, and it came with a personal visit by cook/owner Karen St. John who stopped by the table to make sure everything met our expectations.
The best part, however, was the atmosphere. For one hour, I was taken back more than a decade and left reminiscing about my playing days.
I thought about my time in the football spotlight, and I remembered cheering for my buddies during baseball season. Heck, I even replayed senior skip day at Grapevine Lake.
I was fortunate to have a local hangout just like the Dragons Cafe when I was growing up in Grapevine. It was a local pizza joint that offered nothing special in the way of food.
Pizza is pizza no matter how you slice it. However, this place gave us an extra sense of pride as it was decorated in nothing but Grapevine Mustangs memorabilia.
That little restaurant made us feel important. It was a reminder that our community - win or lose - was proud of our efforts and this was just a small token of their appreciation.
It didn't matter if you were a local or a visitor just driving through town, one stop here and you left feeling the pride of small-town Texas.
That kind of pride is priceless.
The Dragon Cafe offers that same feel-good feeling I had back in the day. It should not take a football state championship or an undefeated basketball season to bring pride to a community. In fact, St. John welcomes anyone to bring by old Chico memorabilia to be poudly displayed in the dining area.
Pride is measured in more than wins and losses. Pride is not something that is coachable or that can be taught in the classroom. You have to look beyond the final score of a game or the attitude of a disgruntled parent.
The reward is knowing that you are a Chico Dragon, which is something that very few people in the world get the chance to be.
