Tim Condon, a trained chef from Honolulu moved to San Angelo with his military family five years ago and fired-up a food trailer called Lonestar Cheeseburger in 2011. He eventually parked the food truck permanently at the corner of W. Beauregard Ave. and S. Abe St. in the parking lot of the Eskimo Hut convenience store.
Business thrived, and today, he has 25 employees on his payroll.
Guys like Condon, who hit pay dirt in entrepreneurial arenas, don’t slow down. His goal was to move into the more permanent digs of a brick and mortar restaurant. He explained that he wants to do something special, not only in business, but in the culinary arts. He hinted at ways he’ll blow away the “bloomin’ onion” with a stack of onion rings that reach for the ceiling. His catering gigs usually include an exotic dish.
“What’s that?” patrons will ask.
“Just taste it,” he’ll reply.
“Ummm. That’s good! What is it?”
These responses and his success have prompted Condon to move forward.
About two years ago, Condon thought he’d found his dream location at the corner of Sherwood Way and Southwest Blvd. The restaurant there had closed and he was trying to make a deal to lease the land and building. Condon said the owners wouldn’t budge enough on the price, so he started searching for a suitable alternative.
“I never thought of downtown,” he said.
One afternoon, however, Condon was strolling down W. Concho Ave. and peeked through a hole in the plywood that boarded up an old warehouse building at 1 W. Concho.
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Above: The plywood exterior of 1 W. Concho Ave. in San Angelo, Texas. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
“I saw that rock wall in the back, and it got me thinking,” Condon said.
The rock wall is a signature artifact of 1902 San Angelo. Oscar Ruffini originally built the building to be a “real estate, livestock, and wool commission” run by Jackson, Hicks, and Jones. On the back wall facing the Concho River, four two-story arched doorways were built to an appropriate height that would give clearance to the mule wagons stacked with wool.
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Above: The two-story arched entryway on the back wall that was tall enough for a mule wagon full of wool. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
All but one remaining doorway, on the east side of the back wall, was bricked-in sometime in the early 20th century. That door opening remains, and looks like it could be an authentic feature in the Alamo.
That the beautiful stone walls inside the blighted building were discovered was fortunate. The building’s last tenant was Cole’s Army Store, an army-navy surplus retailer that was destroyed by fire in 1984. In 1988, an artist named Derek Neitzel was commissioned to paint murals on the exterior plywood that covered the outside of the building, according to Standard-Times columnist Rick Smith. The paintings, now faded, still exist, including the image of Pancho Villa on the double front door that opens on a diagonal wall facing Concho and S. Chadbourne St. Coles, still in business today, relocated a few blocks away to 118 N. Chadbourne.
The last time the building was occupied was before 30-year-old Tim Condon was born.
Downtown real estate investor Lee Pfluger bought the building 30 years ago and is paying for the renovation of the structure to suit Condon’s business plan. Condon will lease the property.
Pfluger offered a short history on the 45-year effort to revitalize downtown.
“The initial focus for revitalization was on Concho Ave., and Chadbourne formed a barrier to the downtown redevelopment that started in ’72,” Pfluger said.
Back then, restoring old buildings was more of a labor of love for millionaires like Ken Gunter and his wife Brenda. The Gunters didn’t know if, or when, their efforts would ever pay off financially, but they spent money anyway, following a calling in their hearts.
“By 1992, the downtown area outside the Block One Concho was mostly vacant, so we started the Regional Urban Design Assistance Team (RUDAT, pronounced roo-dat), and that was the genesis of the whole downtown revitalization effort of today,” Pfluger explained. “Howard Taylor and Henry Smith put the RUDAT deal together and brought in the national American Institute of Architects (AIA) group, about eight people, and they gave us a plan to pursue.”
The Celebration Bridge across the Concho River behind the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, built in 1993, was the first improvement that came out of the RUDAT.
At the time of the RUDAT, Pfluger said the perception of city leaders was that downtown required attention for San Angelo’s long-term survival.
“Suburbanization had sucked all of the air out of downtown,” he said. Half of the buildings were either vacant, or used for storage and junk places. I asked some of the leaders at the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce at the time (early 1990s) why it was important to have a downtown, and they said that when companies are considering relocating here, one of the first things they do is look at the downtown to see what value the citizens place on their community. Is it just a suburban living place, or is ‘the heart’ alive?”
According to Pfluger, RUDAT was the first effort to involve the entire San Angelo community in the revitalization of downtown.
Pfluger would not state how much he paid for the old warehouse with the beautiful walls, but he said it has been a long-term investment that required patience and a great deal of optimism. The right timing and person had to come along before Pfluger was going to invest six figures into restoring the burned-out warehouse building.
Two years ago, Condon showed up in Pfluger’s office.
“You asked me, why nothing happened for 30 years, and what changed? What changed was this guy right here,” Pfluger said, tapping Condon on the shoulder. “Tim Condon is an exceptional personality and chef that can make not only the food part of this thing work, but he can make the atmosphere work. I’m investing in Tim Condon,” Pfluger said. “He can turn this into the premiere dining experience in San Angelo. I think there’s a true need for an atmospheric culinary experience for San Angelo.”
There is 15,000 square feet available in the main building and the two connected adjacent structures, and Condon didn’t need it all. Condon described the restaurant industry’s standard building requirements, where a typical Applebee’s or Chili’s are only 8,000 or 9,000 square feet. For the Angry Cactus, Condon is occupying a little over half the available space. In the remaining space, Pfluger will build small retail spaces.
Now that downtown is on the way up, there’s demand for retail at this corner because there’s a large volume of vehicle traffic traveling on Chadbourne and W. Concho.
Pfluger is bullish on the next business opportunity he says will eventually make downtown even more attractive: downtown living.
“The core of the revitalization depends upon people (as in a population) and we don’t have the living units downtown to create the lifestyle that we need to make it sustainable,” Pfluger said. He anticipates to see lofts, apartments, or condos downtown soon, advocating what Councilwoman Liz Grindstaff talks about frequently: Stanley Marcus’ “24-hour downtown”. (That’s Stanley Marcus of Neiman-Marcus, the storied downtown Dallas retailer who advocated for a 24-hour downtown in his columns published years ago in The Dallas Morning News.)
Pfluger said that San Angelo’s downtown already has the first ingredients: two grocery stores, Lowe’s and Super Mercado. Pfluger hopes some entrepreneur will build more apartments and lofts soon. Standing near the entrance to the Angry Cactus, Pfluger looked across Chadbourne Street at the historic five-story building undergoing renovation, but all of the upper floors looked empty, yet suitable for apartments.
“You have to bring it up to code,” Pfluger said. Then he grimaced. “That’s another aspect of revitalizing downtown.”
There is some help available, though.
The Angry Cactus, like many of the newer projects downtown, benefits from the Tax Increment Refinancing Zone (TIRZ) that provides city and county money from tax abatement to create a fund that reinvests into downtown and part of the Lake View area. The idea is to grow the value of blighted areas, like downtown, to eventually become generators of property taxes. The program offers grants and loans to landowners to renovate. “This property would be cheaper to tear down and build new,” Pfluger said. But by leveraging the government programs available, a business case can be made to restore instead, and keep things like the rock walls in the back of the Angry Cactus building.
“There’s people like Henry Schmidt and myself who are dedicated to the historic preservation of our downtown,” Pfluger said. The programs help them do that. Downtown San Angelo, Inc. lists the incentives available for downtown restoration projects here.
Henry Schmidt is the architect for the Angry Cactus. He said the most interesting part of the old building, even more interesting than the arched doorways, are the iron columns, another signature of circa 1902 building construction. Schmidt noticed the columns when a small piece of the more modern façade was chipped away during the discovery process.
[[{"fid":"17540","view_mode":"preview","type":"media","attributes":{"height":"674","width":"1200","class":"media-element file-preview imgbody"}}]]Above: Architect Henry Schmidt points to an iron column from the 1902 construction. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
Schmidt was also the architect for the nearby Twisted Root Burger Company, now complete. He’s fulltime on the Angry Cactus now.
“In 1913, they had a theater on the roof,” he said. Schmidt learned the history of the building by researching historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. The theater was named the “Sky Dome Theater.”
When the building was completed in 1902, four stone walls surrounded the building, and it stood out in an early aerial photo taken from a hot air balloon back then. It looked like a fortress. Between 1915 and 1917, additional warehouse structures were built attached to the south and west sides. Steel poles provided the columns in the new additions, and the roofing featured wood trusses. On the southern addition, it has a drop ceiling.
[[{"fid":"17542","view_mode":"preview","type":"media","attributes":{"height":"674","width":"1200","class":"media-element file-preview imgbody"}}]]Above: A picture taken circa 1902 when 1 W. Concho Ave. was just built. The red arrow points to the building. (Photo of a Xerox copy of a Jan. 15, 1990 Historical Commission report)
By the end of World War I, the automobile had arrived, Schmidt said. The southern building housed the Allen Overland Company and facing Concho was a gas station, Green Front Filling Station.
A tire store, auto parts (Motor Supply Company, 1927) and finally another gas station came next.
Along the way, the stone walls on the front, facing Chadbourne and Concho were cut out to allow cars to drive through to get gas, and a newer façade covered the rock work.
Schmidt’s work on the Twisted Root is excellent in preserving details that were a piece of that old building’s character. The next time you’re there, look at the green floors, or how the outside deck on the river blends with the structure, for example. Expect more of that with the Angry Cactus.
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Above: The Angry Cactus team: Henry Schmidt, TIm Condon, and Lee Pfluger. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
The remaining arched doorway will lead to an outdoor patio this is tucked in a narrow alleyway between buildings on the south side. The inside seating will not require a patron to sit with his or her back to the live music stage. Condon promises live music shows, along with food and drink.
[[{"fid":"17539","view_mode":"preview","type":"media","attributes":{"height":"674","width":"1200","class":"media-element file-preview imgbody"}}]]Above: City leaders, the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce Concho Cadre, and the Angry Cactus team break ground on construction. (LIVE! Photo/Joe Hyde)
Condon doesn’t want to set an exact date for the grand opening of the Angry Cactus.
“Let’s just say we’re aiming for August or late summer 2016,” he said.
As for the food truck? Condon, praising his managers there, said he’s going to keep it going too.
Below, a video of Tim Condon's presentation on his vision for the Angry Cactus.
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