Photo by Beth Wade
Photo by Beth Wade
Photo by Beth Wade
Photo by Kate MorrisFamily hopes restaurant helps rebuild town
The Foster family has plans to put the town of Weir back on the map with their family-owned and -operated business, Weir Country Store, by way of chicken fried steaks, barbecue and hamburgers.
Located about 10 miles north of Georgetown, the town of Weir has a population of fewer than 600. Although the community has always been small, at one point in time it supported several businesses along Main Street, Owner Doyle Foster said.
I still talk to people that dont know where Weir is, Doyle said. There are people in Georgetown that dont know where Weir is. Weve got to do a good job because otherwise theyre not going to come out here, or theyre not going to come back.
Doyle, along with his daughter, Valinda Pitts, and his son, Ron, keeps the business going at the deli, which is located inside their gas station convenience store. The plates are paper and the utensils are plastic, but the food is what keeps people coming back, Doyle said.
I live really close, but I hadnt started eating here until the last couple of weeks, customer Kevin Cavanaugh said. I could smell their barbecue one day.
Monday through Friday the menu features the special of the day. Wednesday has become a customer favorite at the store, when on average the store serves 60 to 65 chicken fried steaks to a crowd of regulars that includes area judges and police officers, Pitts said.
The restaurant also serves hamburgers seven days a week, from open to close.
We have good, juicy hamburgers, Pitts said. We never freeze our meat its fresh, and we make our own patties by hand. We dont go for that pre-done stuffits as homemade as we can get it.
From 5:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. business is typically steady as customers stop for a bite, but the store they visit now is not the original location, Doyle said.
The family landed in the business after Doyle bought the convenience store from Jerry and Hattie Burran in 1993. Doyle said the business had not been running well in the past.
The first thing he said he did was move the building off the corner and further back on the land where a gas station had previously been.
Then in 1995 the family built the Weir Country Store next to the original one, where they have since added the Bunkhouse Bar and Grill.
Although the original building remains unused, Foster does not plan to let the building sit and wither away.
Ive got to do something, otherwise Weir cant grow, Foster said.
By the end of the year Doyle plans to convert the original old wooden building he gained in the trade into a restaurant that serves steaks and barbecue.
As for the possibility of adding other locations, the family says they will keep things strictly in Weir.
People are going to have to come out here if they want to see us, Doyle said. Were trying to put Weir back on the map.
Weir Country Store, 101 N. Main St., Weir, 512-863-8638,www.facebook.com/pages/ weir-country-store/504417039680170, Hours: Mon.Fri. 5:30 a.m.10 p.m., Sat.Sun. 7 a.m.10 p.m. (The kitchen closes at 9 p.m.)
[Correction: We incorrectly listed the hours for Weir Country store as closing at 10:30 p.m. on weekdays. The store closes at 10 p.m. and the deli closes at 9 p.m. Clarification: In Doyle Foster's reference to the previous business, the story should have said the store had not been running well and business had been slow.]
