Cheeseburgers in Paradise

Exiting Interstate-25 south of Socorro, I head east on the two-lane asphalt known as U.S. 380. Auburn-tinted desert dappled with creosote bushes lines the highway.

Ahead is the village of San Antonio, beyond that the Rio Grande River and further down the road the Jornada del Muerto basin.

San Antonio, population 113, is one of those places you might miss if you blinked. But a yellow signal at the intersection of U.S. 380 and New Mexico 1 warns motorists to slow down as they zip through town. Lacking this signal, the plain stucco building at this crossroads might be overlooked.

That would be a shame.

Aside its entrance is a pole bearing a large two-sided sign that features the outline of a brown owl. Between its outstretch wings is the word, "OWL," and beneath its tailfeathers, "BAR & CAFÉ."

"OWL BAR AND CAFÉ" is also painted in two-foot-high letters across the top of the building. There's a painted owl perched in the "O."

Despite its ample signage, I had driven through San Antonio a dozen times without giving the "Owl" a second glance. That changed a couple years back when I wandered in, hungry and thirsty.

The vintage Schlitz stained-glass light over the cash register convinced me I had found someplace real. Another sign above the rustic back bar proclaimed purveyance of the "World's finest hamburgers and steaks."

I took a barstool and ordered a "cheely" cheeseburger and a cold beer.

I shared the bar with an old-timer wearing a cowboy hat. A sweat stain covered the felt where the straight-sided crown rose from its brim. Although his name has faded from memory, his stories have not. In most of my wanderings I encounter a past composed of dead facts, but not at the Owl, not in San Antonio. Stories live here.

The old-timer concluded every anecdote with a benediction: "Things weren't so different then." He'd chase each one with a sip of his beer.

I've been back many times since and have yet to encounter the old-timer again. Nevertheless, I'm always asking the person seated on the next barstool if a story I'd heard from him is true.

Tonight, I'm meeting up with my cousin, Deanna, her husband, Carlos, and their family -- at the Owl. They are celebrating the 88th birthday of her mother-in-law, Joyce. Joyce's husband and Deanna's father-in-law, Luis, a native San Antonian, was born a couple blocks from here in 1933. Luis has spent the past week giving me the lowdown on the Central Rio Grande Valley and green chiles.

From the moment they enter the Owl, Luis and Joyce, are greeted by all. People come over to ask how they've been. They laugh, slap Luis on the back, meander back to their seats.

The waitress interrupts the banter, asking, "What's it going to be?"

There is no need for a menu. It's just a matter of quantity. Five green chile cheeseburgers for the table. Luis orders a side of green chiles, too.

I tell Joyce the old-timer had claimed that the Owl's 25-foot-long bar was once inside the first Hilton Hotel. She says that's true but offers no details.

I'd heard various accounts of the bar's journey through San Antonio's past. It belonged to A. H. Hilton, father of Conrad Hilton. Connie, as the locals called him, was born here -- as was the global hotel chain that bears his name.

The most common telling of the story has the hand-carved 1880s Brunswick bar going from a saloon in the old hotel to the A. H. Hilton Mercantile Store, where it served as a countertop. After the mercantile burned in 1945, Frank Chavez, who owned the Owl, bought it and had it carted a quarter-mile up the street, where it became the centerpiece of not just the Owl, but San Antonio, too.

Another version is that Frank Chavez' father acquired the bar from Hilton Mercantile and put it to use as a counter in his grocery store. The bar stayed put when the grocery moved down the street, reincarnating as a proper bar when the Owl nested in the vacated space.

The spinning of yarns pauses momentarily when the Owl's signature green chile cheeseburgers appear. Legend holds that this delicacy was invented here, though some will argue over where the best version is served – the Owl or the Buckhorn Tavern across the road.

Regardless, for my taste it is the legend that separates the two, but even then, there is more than one version of this folktale. One has Frank Chavez adding green chiles to the cheeseburger to save time and dishware when his dishwasher didn't show up for work.

The old-timer told me green chiles were added to the cheeseburger for the horde of new clientele who arrived during the mid-1940s. These newcomers tried to pass themselves off as prospectors. Turns out they were some of the top scientists on earth. They were working 30 miles up the road at the top-secret Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was denotated.

Some stories even attribute the origin of the name, "Owl Bar and Café," to the scientists themselves -- who were said to be night owls.

Another telling identifies the original night owls as a group of gamblers who gathered behind the grocery store late at night for the chance to win each other's money. According to the old-timer -- the name stuck.

In any case, the bar was open late and the scientists took a liking to Frank Chavez, the Owl and his green chile cheeseburgers.

One summer night, just before closing time, a scientist told Frank to watch the eastern sky before sunrise. Nothing else was said.

That morning, just before dawn, July 16, 1945, the sun rose twice over San Antonio. From a steel tower rising a hundred feet above the desert floor, 30 miles in the distance, a nuclear fission bomb turned night into day in a flash of light. To this day the blast-site remains a restricted area.

Luis didn't see, or feel the Trinity explosion, but he heard stories. Initially, newspapers reported it as an ammunition depot explosion at nearby Holloman Air Force Base, but it wasn't too long before the real story came out.

Nearly 80 years later, these stories and others, in all their forms, live on. For many of those years, whether it was the grocery store or bar and café, Luis has been coming to this building on the corner of 380 and 1.

"There are other foods you can eat," he says as he spoons extra green chile onto his cheeseburger, "but none of them are as good as the green chile."

It is but one more nugget of lore Luis has shared this week. He has schooled me on the finer points of everything green chile. Sitting under a pecan tree in his backyard in Socorro, he coached me through peeling bushels of roasted green chiles barehanded, and how to ignore the tingling sensation in my fingers afterward. He described how in his youth, before refrigerators and freezers, they dried chiles for storage during winter months: Hung by their stems from clotheslines -- covered with cheesecloth to ward off birds – until shriveled.

Each of the past three nights, as his family gathered to celebrate Joyce's birthday, he prepared traditional green and red chile dishes, sharing his recipes and tips. And tonight, Luis and Joyce showed me their Owl.

After finishing our meal, we say our goodbyes in the parking lot. The sun is setting over the Magdalena Mountains as I open my car door and take a last look around. A familiar aroma captures my attention. It's the scent of the creosote bush – somewhere upwind, it's raining.

Friends, beer, green chiles, and imminent rain -- the Owl is legendary.