FLETCHER BOONE: 1931-2007
Co-owner of old Austin TX literati hangout served up attitude
Fletcher Boone and his business partner slung insults as well as pork chops, steaks at Raw Deal restaurants.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Fletcher Boone, one of the owners of the old Raw Deal pork chop and steak restaurants in downtown Austin, died Monday. He was 76.
In their heydays, both the Raw Deal on Sabine Street near the police station and Another Raw Deal on West Sixth Street were Austin’s literati hangouts known for smart-aleck attitudes.
Kelly West
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
(enlarge photo)
Fletcher Boone was a sculptor and painter who teamed up with business partner Jim ‘Lopez’ Smitham to hand out insults at their pork chop and steak restaurants in downtown Austin.
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“There was a sign on the wall (of the original Raw Deal) that said, ‘Remember that you came looking for the Raw Deal, the Raw Deal didn’t come looking for you,’ ” recalled Texas Monthly writer Gary Cartwright, a regular. “That was sort of the attitude of the place. And there was a sign that said, ‘It’ll be better next time,’ as you were leaving.”
Both places were known for attracting writers, musicians and politicians, among them Ann Richards before she was governor of Texas, state Comptroller Bob Bullock, Texas Monthly writer Jan Reid, musician Steve Fromholz and writer Bud Shrake.
Boone and his business partner, Jim “Lopez” Smitham, were a tag team for dishing out insults. Boone was the straight man, and the late Smitham was the sledgehammer.
One time when a customer came into Another Raw Deal about five minutes before it opened, Smitham looked at the regular sitting at the bar and cussed him out for no apparent reason. When the customer asked what that was all about, Boone explained, “Aw, he’s just warmin’ up.”
Eddie Wilson, today the owner of Threadgill’s restaurants in Austin,TX sold the original Raw Deal to Boone and Smitham in the summer of 1977. “I sold it to them for it seems like $750, and I let em pay it out $50 a week,” he recalled.
Wilson says it was ironic that before he had sold the place to Boone, he had thrown Boone out of the place “for overbearing loud intellectual conversations with Jim Smitham.”
Later, Boone and Smitham opened Another Raw Deal on Sixth Street, which went out of business in the 1980s. “The reason (Boone and Smitham) broke up their partnership is, Fletcher forgot to pay the utility bill, and then all the beer went bad,” Cartwright said.
Boone, a sculptor and painter, was in the master’s program in art at the University of Texas and owned several art galleries, one of them known popularly as the Gallery Goo because the lettering on the sign, which was supposed to say Gallery 600, was hard to make out.
Boone died as the result of injuries from a car wreck three weeks ago near Bastrop TX . He is survived by his daughters, Belinda Boone and Lily Haley.
A visitation will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home, 3125 N. Lamar Blvd., Ausitn,TX followed by a wake at Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacincto Blvd.