Remnant of boom days

BY MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer
Monday, November 26, 2007
2/04/08 at 3:41 PM

Read other stories in the series: A funereal existence :: Last real Coyote hunter :: Big-City Cuisine in Small-Town America :: Reaping what we sow :: Prairie family persevered :: 'Not much left' of town except strong local pride :: Oklahoma 'ghost town' still alive and kicking :: ‘We’re all characters around here’ :: Hominy warms to Mexican cuisine :: Cut from the same cloth

Still rolling, but pace slows

Editor's Note: During 2007 -- Oklahoma's centennial -- Tulsa World staff writer Michael Overall is traveling the state, writing about unique Oklahoma personalities.

FAIRFAX -- Hear that? Sounds like Bob Wills drifting through the old cafe, the two-step rhythm almost drowned out by the clanking dishes, a faint country twang nearly lost in the murmuring crowd.

Maybe it's just my imagination. Or maybe it's the radio in the kitchen, tuned as always to a country station in Tulsa. Or maybe these wood-paneled walls have absorbed so much music over the years that the echoes are still reverberating.

"I miss you, darlin', more and more every day," Bob sings, "as heaven would miss the stars above."

Mary Jo Hendrix can almost hear the boots scootin' across the old dance floor and the rustling of poodle skirts.

" 'Faded Love' was Mama's favorite song," she remembers. "And Dad would always dance with her. Dad loved to dance."

All of the country superstars used to bring their tour buses deep into the Osage Hills to play at Jump's Roller Inn Cafe -- Jump's because that was Dad's name, Roller because the dance floor doubled as a skating rink, and Inn because a motel is next door.

Conway Twitty. Merle Haggard. Johnny Lee. Hank Thompson.

Hendrix grew up knowing all of the country greats. Some of them came around so often they seemed like family.

She was 5 when her parents came to Fairfax to take over the Roller Inn Cafe, 7 when she started waiting tables, and a teenager when she learned to cook.

"Been here ever since," she says. "Wouldn't know what else to do."

That's 60 years of taking orders, refilling drinks, serving chicken fries, washing dishes, making gravy. Sixty years of going to work at 4 a.m. and counting herself lucky if she was home before 10. Sixty years of listening to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Eventually.

'Pack 'em in': After a while, if you've been through enough small towns in Oklahoma, the story sounds predictable. You can guess the history before the locals tell you.

It was once a boomtown, with the schools full of children and Main Street full of shoppers. Then the oil fields dried up. Companies left town. Families moved away. Shops closed.

The current population is a fraction of what it once was, but one iconic place has somehow made it to the 21st century, giving a new generation a glimpse of how much bigger small-town life used to be.

In Fairfax, that iconic place is the Roller Inn Cafe.

In the '40s and '50s, it was an obligatory stop for a country music tour. And fans came from miles around, even from as far away as Tulsa, an hour's drive.

"We could really pack 'em in," Hendrix says. "We'd have 700, 800 people on a good weekend. Jump's was the place to be."

Eventually, the food became just as famous as the music.

'To be honest': After Hendrix got married at 16, her husband, Cleo, took over the kitchen. He was said to make the best steaks this side of the Red River: so big they'd hang over the plate, so tender you hardly needed to chew.

"Runt had a knack for it; he really did," Hendrix says, using Cleo's nickname. "He made it an art form."

For more than 20 years, the routine never changed: Runt cooked. Mama made pies. Hendrix waited on tables. And Dad stayed busy doing a little of everything.

"There was just one problem," Hendrix says, smiling. "We didn't know it, but for all those years, we were getting older."

And the town was getting smaller. By the '90s, her parents were retired and the coun try stars didn't know where Fairfax was, leaving the dance hall boarded up with a leaky roof and a rotted floor.

Runt died four years ago. Now, it's pretty much just Hendrix running the cafe, with some help from a couple of grown grandchildren.

"I don't think they have it in them to run this place after I'm gone," she says. "To be honest, I don't think this place will outlive me."

Technically, the Roller Inn Cafe has been for sale since Hendrix underwent open-heart surgery a couple of years ago -- she figures she might as well find a buyer herself to save her kids the trouble.

What worries her is that somebody might actually buy it.

"I don't know if I could walk out of here," she says, glancing around the dining room, decorated with family photographs and deer heads, most of them collected by Runt, an avid hunter.

"I think they're going to have to carry me out, eventually."

When the time comes, Fairfax is going to miss this old place. "More and more everyday," as Bob used to sing, "as heaven would miss the stars above."

Michael Overall 581-8383
michael.overall@tulsaworld.com

Associated Images:

Mary Jo Hendrix, the owner of Jump’s Roller Inn Cafe in Fairfax, chats about the business while her brother-in-law Leon Hendrix works behind her.