New Restaurant and Music Venue Coming to San Angelo

For the past four years, Timothy Condon has carried the reputation of the chef behind the city’s best burgers. Serving full-time out food truck stationed at Beauregard and Koenigheim St., business has been booming at Lonestar Cheeseburger, but the executive chef has set his sights on a space less mobile.

Between the original, exposed rock walls of a long-vacant army surplus store in the city’s downtown, Condon is hard at work on his new project: a west Texas themed bar, grill and live music venue that marries rustic with modern, dubbed the Angry Cactus.

The concept centers on a menu of traditional west Texas fare, up-scaled and refined to create a one-of-a-kind dining experience where art is brought off the walls and onto the plate. Favorites, like wings for appetizers and prime cuts of steak, will be included in the menu, but healthy options, such as a cedar plank salmon served with mixed greens and a quinoa barley pilaf will round out the card.

"We really think that it’s important to give the consumer a quality product at a good price, so it’s not necessarily going to be expensive, but it will have a very modern and a very west Texas vibe,” Condon said. “We’ll also have sandwiches and salads, and what’s really cool is, we’re going to feature tableside service. So we’re going to do guacamole at the table, we’re going to do bananas foster flambé, and we’re also going to do our signature spinning-bowl salad, which is going to be tossed at the table.”

Condon will serve as the executive chef at Angry Cactus, and cites years of experience working in a resort in Honolulu and classical training as expertise. Executive sous chef David Morales, who has worked in the food truck with Condon for the past three and a half years, will work beside him.

“Selling cheeseburgers is great, but as a chef, my passion is more art,” Condon said. “This concept is really designed around art. There’s going to a lot of art in the restaurant itself and a lot of the presentations and things are going to be upscale and very well presented. Our concept is we want to put art on a plate on the high-end things, but also be a great place to have a casual lunch.”

Maximizing the features of the antiquated structure, Condon intends to maintain the integrity of the building, utilizing the exposed brick and rock walls as accents and adding detailed woodwork and architectural elements that fit the theme.

An open kitchen, custom-made bar, and raised seating area in the back are planned to contribute to the atmosphere, and a stage set for local and well-known Texas country talent will be positioned near the front.

“We’ll have a dance floor and really cool architectural features that I basically did all myself,” Condon said. “We’re going to have a waterfall in the middle going through. Every single seat is going to have a direct line of sight to the stage. The booths are all going to be shifted at a diagonal pattern so that everyone can see the stage.”

The location is comprised of three buildings, which Condon intends to use for different purposes. The main building will serve as the dining room and venue, and an adjacent room will be dedicated to private functions.

“There’s going to be an outdoor alleyway where there’s going to be outdoor seating and there’s also going to be a private dining room where we’re going to do our wine dinner that we’re pretty well known for, and sake dinners and beer tastings and all kinds of good stuff,” Condon said.

The Angry Cactus is scheduled to open in October at 1 W. Concho, Condon said hopefully, and construction will begin this week. The idea has taken to years to perfect and set into motion, and Condon hopes to make the restaurant the number one locale in town.

“My philosophy is ‘go big or go home’ and my goal is to make it the best restaurant in town,” Condon said. “That’s what we’re really trying to achieve.”