At high noon in Bandera, the Cowboy Capital of the world, not much happens, I'd reckon. But at 9 on a Friday evening, the joint is jumping. Well, twitching, at least. A quick walk down Main Street revealed a seemly crowd at the Old Spanish Trail restaurant, chowing down on salads from the chuckwagon bar and swiveling on genuine saddle seats at the counter. Some serious boot scootin' was going on at the Bandera Saloon up the street. And in the ultra-atmospheric basement that is Arkey Blue's Silver Dollar, Arkey and his band were warming up for a long evening of Shiner suds and folks shuffling around in sawdust on the dance floor.
Fool Moon Café, on the other hand, was just winding up its evening operations. Open at odd hours, the diminutive café/bakery/coffee house, with its artfully aged walls, scarred pine floors (we imagined spurs doing the scarring, of course), and tables topped with butcher paper, had filled maybe half of its 45 seats during the two hours it's open for Friday dinner. At the leisurely pace of service, it is hard to imagine that much more of a crowd could be accommodated by Jason Boone and his hard-working sidekick Cory Winfield. We didn't feel neglected, but we did spend the two entire hours at table. - Ron Bechtol