Angus Barn: restaurant ages with style

Nation's Restaurant News, May 8, 1989 by Jack Hayes

ANGUS BARN Rustic restaurant ages with style

In June 28, 1960, four waitresses at the Angus Barn restaurant in Raleigh, N.C., became so flustered with their brand-new employer's lack of operating finesse that they literally pried open a window in the ladies' room to sneak out of the embarrassment.

"That's the true story of opening night," says Alice Eure, laughing. She washed dishes by hand until five in the morning at this beef-eater's paradise, which is now as legendary as its founder, her husband, the late Thad Eure Jr.

"Dishes got backed up into the dining room. It was two weeks before the plumber came," recalls the polished widow who is "Barnmaster" now, with her daughter Van, over a 580-seat operation averaging nearly 1,000 Saturday dinner covers and 700 during weeknights.

"Few people knew Thad had never boiled water before he got into this," reveals the woman who claims she panicked 29 years ago when she learned the Angus Barn was going to be opened.

Today the same person announces she can't wait to begin serving her first Angus Barn lunch this fall.

And Van, who walked away from a teaching assignment in Africa for a piece of the family business five years ago, looks proudly at the growth of wine -- now exceeding 2,000 bottles a week -- which comes largely from her efforts.

Two Angus Barn veterans, general manager Frank Dale and food director and kitchen manager Betty Shuggart, help manage the 185-person staff that includes laundry personnel handling a thousand table-cloths a day and all the restaurant's uniforms.

"We're like a well-polished saddle now," says Van Eure, who judges Angus Barn's rustic comfort among the main reasons patrons come back to spend $33 on an average check. "They say we just grow more beautiful with age."

"But they like our giant portions," insists Alice Eure, who lobbied once for smaller plates at Angus Barn. "I told Thad we had to cut down the size, but he warned me: `If you like the long waiting lines at dinner, you'd better leave those big portions alone."

Validating that prophesy, Angus Barn's No. 1 menu item is a 10-ounce Rib Eye at $17.95. The 10-ounce filet mignon at $19.95 holds second place at the restaurant, which sticks to beef because beef is what its patrons want.

Nevertheless, Alice Eure concedes that lamb now holds two places on the menu's second page together with barbecued pig ribs, beef ribs, and seafood.

Broiled lobster tail, the highest menu item at $25.95, joins fresh fish, broiled giant shrimp, soft-shell crab, and oysters Rockefeller in the growing seafood section.

The Eures own a fish market on the coast of North Carolina, from which they take the pick of the catch, including their signature oysters-on-a-half-shell appetizer at $5.95.

Ice-filled boats dressed with shelled oysters accessorize the main dining rooms, where dinner tables start with Angus Barn crocks of Cheddar and blue cheese, commodes of fresh vegetables, and plates of signature cracker bread.

In the middle of North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill research triangle -- still growing out of its connection to North Carolina State, Duke, and the University of North Carolina -- the Angus Barn's market population reached nearly 700,000 in 1988.

When liquor by the drink became legal seven years ago in North Carolina, Angus Barn got another shot in the arm. And continued expansion of the airport, only two miles away, is a third factor in the restaurant's success.

But observers claim the Angus Barn would be nowhere without Thad Eure's -- and now his survivor's -- dogged drive to implant the best operating ideas.

Some things that haven't changed: gingham dresses, bonnets, and white aprons for waitresses; bibb overalls and plaid shirts for waiters; and free apples after meals (a $15,000 annual expense).

"And even through those rough first months of 1960," reflects Alice Eure, "we still have the very first person we hired 29 years ago."

PHOTO : Comfort is one of reason customers keep returning to the Angus Barn.

PHOTO : From left: Alice Eure, general manager Frank Dale, Van Eure, and food director Betty Shuggart.

PHOTO : Angus Barn is perched in scenic North Carolina atmosphere.