Interviewers: Gavin Benke, Remy Ramirez, and Marsha Abrahams
Location: Taylor Cafe, 101 N Main St, Taylor, TX 76574
This interview was originally produced through a collaborative effort of the American Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, The Central Texas Barbecue Association, and The Southern Foodways Alliance.
It is shared with Foodways Texas as part of a collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance to document food stories in Texas.
Vencil Mares was born on November 10, 1923. A native Texan, Mr. Mares returned home from WWII and went right into the barbecue business.
He began in Elgin, Texas, at the Southside Market in 1948. It was there, working in the smoke pit, that Mares learned the secrets of the barbecue trade, including how to make his much acclaimed sausage. A year later, he purchased what is now Taylor Café in nearby Taylor, Texas, and has been the owner and operator of the establishment ever since. Taylor Café’s hundred-year-old building is as distinctive as Vencil’s ketchup-based barbecue sauce, complete with jukebox, mismatched bar stools, and an antique cash register. Though the Taylor Café has been housed in the same building since it opened, there have been a few changes. Some years ago, for example, Mr. Mares added turkey sausage to his menu. But Taylor Café is still, at its heart, the same barbecue joint that it was in 1948.
