From a replica of a horse-and-buggy on the roof to the papier-mâché cowboy “customers” playing cards at a table inside, the quirky splendor of Country Kitchen is a lot to take in. “It is unique,” says 71-year-old owner Scott McLean, who took over the 61-year-old Lampasas restaurant when his late father, C. D. McLean, retired in 1992. “Sometimes I walk in in the morning and think, ‘Oh my gosh.’ ” C. D. was an avowed treasure hunter who bought the restaurant in 1976 and filled almost every inch of its wood-paneled walls with tchotchkes and oddities. Scott, who began working at the restaurant in 1983—in part to hold down the fort while C. D. was off antiquing—doesn’t share his father’s passion for picking but admits he can’t bring himself to get rid of any of it. “People hit me up all the time to buy stuff,” he says, adding that he regrets the one item he did sell to a customer: an old brass sign for a Depression-era bank in Goldthwaite, where the McLean family hails from.
A pretty Hill Country town about an hour northwest of Austin, Lampasas was a lunchtime stop for my family on a recent drive to Colorado. On road trips, we try to eat at locally owned restaurants, and Country Kitchen fit the bill. Though à la carte items are available every day at breakfast and most days for “dinner,” as McLean refers to the noon meal, the cafeteria is the heart of the operation.
Grabbing trays, we got in line and ordered “short plates”: a half portion of meat and two sides. The food was even tastier than we expected. My catfish was crunchy on the outside and flaky inside, and my husband’s chicken-fried steak had the perfect crust-to-meat ratio. A side of coleslaw was sweet and vinegary, and collard greens were smoky-peppery. My teenage daughter’s chicken tenders were so good I asked our server if they kept chickens in the back. They don’t, as it turns out, but they do soak the tenders overnight in seasoned buttermilk. According to McLean, all of the meats (they also serve a daily roast) are prepared fresh every morning.
A mix of old-timers, young families, and locals filled the Formica-topped tables, and “Badger Nation” signs celebrated the high school sports teams. At a table near us, a farmer in overalls and her elderly father chatted with the waitress. McLean told me many of his customers come every day, including 81-year-old Ralph Thomas, a former employee who lets himself in through the back door every morning at around 6:30 and makes his own coffee. Ralph’s wife, Pat, was Country Kitchen’s baker for nearly forty years until her death, in 2021. Ralph was hired on to help her out in her last few years. “She’d do the brain work, and he’d take the big pans out of the oven,” says McLean.
If the cafeteria is the heart of Country Kitchen, its bakery is the soul. The dessert counter is stocked with around a dozen varieties of pies, many sporting meringue caps at least six inches high. (“We use egg whites, not meringue powder,” McLean says.) There are also fruit turnovers and Dr Pepper cake sold by the slice.
McLean shadowed Pat for years, but “teaching a farm boy to bake was not easy,” he says. After her death, he was determined to translate her recipes (she told him she purposely miswrote them) for yeast dough and pie crust. “She had that kind of knowledge that you just don’t find anymore, and she guarded it,” he says, chuckling. His new baker, Alan Mays, arrives every day at 4 a.m. A cafe that turns out scratch-made pies—along with cakes, cornbread, and even Texas toast—seven days a week feels as rare as the solar eclipse that blanketed Lampasas in total darkness for 4 minutes and 25 seconds on April 8.
Country Kitchen was hit hard by the pandemic. McLean paid a full salary to employees who stayed on, even though the restaurant served only ten or so takeout customers a day. He cut the restaurant’s hours to compensate. When I asked if he might serve an evening meal again, he said it’s a possibility but that he’d “kind of gotten used to” the current schedule. The cafe is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., so you’ll want to time your visit accordingly.
Note: After the June issue went to press, McLean announced that he’d retired and sold Country Kitchen to local business owner Roy Cockrell. McLean plans to still come to the restaurant every morning.
This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Lunching in Lampasas.” Subscribe today.
