On Retailing

Tuesday, October 16, 2001

New way to use old Town Club

Vietnam Restaurant owners to buy downtown building that has a colorful history

George Gongora/Caller-Times

The old Town Club building, which is expected to have a new owner this week, has been home to a number of restaurant varieties in its 74-year history. By far the most famous was the elegant, illegal 1940s gambling establishment the Dragon Grill.

The owners of the Vietnam Restaurant in southern Corpus Christi plan to buy one of downtown Corpus Christi's most storied buildings and transform it into a Vietnamese restaurant with a French colonial decor.
   The old Town Club building has served as just about every other variety of restaurant in its 74-year history - Mexican, Italian, continental - but by far the most famous was the very elegant, very illegal 1940s gambling establishment the Dragon Grill. Later, the building on the corner of Water and Starr streets housed the Town Club, the tony private dining club now at One Shoreline Plaza. Now, three years empty and still stamped with the name of its last occupant, the Corpus Christi Grille and Brewery, the building is set for a real estate transaction Wednesday.
   "It's about time for us to have a building and establish ourselves,'' said Vietnam Restaurant manager Bac Nguyen.
   Vietnam Restaurant has been leasing its current spot on South Padre Island Drive between Weber and Everhart roads since 1995. Nguyen runs the restaurant for his in-laws, the Lams, who have had restaurants in Vietnam and San Francisco.
   They specialize in contemporary Vietnamese cuisine with its colonial influence, including black pepper soft-shell crab, and one of their most popular dishes, Napoleon beef with tempura in a sweet and tangy sauce.
   But the family wants more space and parking and was willing to take their chances on a move from South Padre Island Drive's crowded shopping centers.
   "Life is just a gamble. You have to be confident in yourself,'' Nguyen said. "The downtown is getting a facelift and the arena is coming in a few years, so it will bring a lot of business downtown.''
   The Vietnam Restaurant will have more space than it needs. The family plans to buy the three-story building, about 23,219 square feet, plus the parking lot next door. They hope to lease the second and third floor for offices. The entire block is empty now, save for the Greyhound bus station.
   Nguyen said he also was surprised by the low asking price - $695,000. He said the family plans to buy it for less, but renovations will cost at least another $400,000.
   He plans to tear out walls, install new plumbing and heating and air conditioning, plus level the raised floor.
   The outside will take on an appearance similar to Vietnamese architecture with its arcades and columns surrounded by urns of tropical plants and a new color scheme, said architect Bibiana Dykema of Bright and Dykemas Architects.
   She said the new building should transform the block nearby some of the downtown's largest hotels, the Omni Bayfront and Marina hotels.
   "It's been pretty bad for all the tourists that whole block is desolate,'' she said.
   At one point in history, the block was far from desolate. The building was built in 1927 as an Elks Lodge and later housed the Playboy Café, the Paradise Night Club, the YMCA, and most famously, the Dragon Grill.
   One of Corpus Christi's true characters, the wooden-legged Linn K. "Doc" Mason opened the club in 1944 in the building after his other club was destroyed by fire on North Beach.
   It was an elegant members-only restaurant where customers could listen to big bands play and get a mixed drink when it was still illegal to sell them to the public.
   The third floor had sliding wall panels so dice could be stashed away if need be. The story goes that a greeter watched the elevator and buzzed if an unknown person was riding toward the room.
   Edwin Singer, one of the members and later an owner of the Town Club, described it as "one of the most famous gambling grills in Texas history," where Texans flocked to the sky-is-the-limit gambling like modern Americans go to Las Vegas.
   An insurance company later sued the club after a Navy officer allegedly lost $12,000 of government funds in dice games there.
   "Texas was considered by everyone to be kind of wild and wide open,'' said Linda Gothia, now general manager of the Town Club in One Shoreline Plaza. "It all happened right there in that building and Doc Mason was one of those characters everyone knew.''
   The club closed in the early 1950s after an undercover police officer made it up to the third floor with a date on his arm, the story goes. When the games started, he threw his badge on the table.
   The Dragon Grill closed and Doc Mason later died in Las Vegas.
   In 1952, former members started the Town Club, which stayed in the building until 1988.
   Odon Garcia, who worked at the Town Club starting in 1954, said it was a place to go for an elegant, unhurried four-course meal. The second floor became an English pub and the third floor was used for weddings and large parties. Garcia once found a sliding wall panel still there leading to a fire escape in the back of the building.
   After the Town Club moved to One Shoreline Plaza, the building housed La Pesca Mexican seafood restaurant, The Flying Tomato, and the Corpus Christi Grille and Brewery, which brewed its own beer in-house.
   Gothia said the building has a lot to say about Texas history.
   "I think it's more important than people have really given thought to,'' she said.
   Chico's opens
   Chico's, a women's clothing company that sells almost exclusively its own designs, opened last week in Lamar Park shopping center on Doddridge Street. The Fort Meyers, Fla.-based company has 282 stores and $260 million in annual sales.
   Car sales
   Zero percent financing deals last month weren't enough to make it as good as last September for auto sales. Sales for the month came in at 1,280 compared with 1,642 the same month a year ago, according to Nueces County records.
  
  

---

Contact business writer Naomi Snyder at 886-4316 or snydern@caller.com

| Stock look up | Business Calendar | Talk about this story | Home |

---

---

[ Printer-friendly version ]
[ Subscribe to newspaper ]

SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND

---

  © 2001, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.