Hard Times Cafe

Ira Goodfellow was born in Grapevine, Texas in 1874. When he was 15 years old, his father gave him a horse, a double-barreled shot gun and a 10-dollar bill, and told him it was time to go out and seek his fortune.

Fred and Jim Parker — brothers and Hard Times Cafe’s founders — knew this story because Ira Goodfellow was their grandfather. His first job was a trail drive cowboy at the Waggoner ranch near Wichita Falls, Texas. It was there that he learned how to prepare chili from a chuck wagon cook. He went on to marry and homestead in Oklahoma territory.

Irma, his oldest daughter, eventually took over the kitchen chores and it was grandpa Ira’s chili recipe she used when she opened a small roadhouse in Gracemont, Oklahoma in the late 1940s. Irma became famous for her Texas chili; customers drove the 50 miles from Oklahoma City just for a taste. Her place finally succumbed to the new interstate highway system, a fate shared by many independent eateries on the secondary roads of the country.

In the mid 1960s, Fred and Jim Parker discovered the Texas Chili Parlor of Washington, D.C. on Pennsylvania Avenue. The place only served straight chili, chili with beans, chili dogs and chili mac. That was it. Open until 3 a.m., it was a favorite hangout for cabbies, policeman, reporters and other folks working the graveyard shift. The Texas Chili Parlor also had a high-profile clientele: David Brinkley was a regular, as was President Truman.

The place was owned by two salty old ladies named Barbara Abbot and Hazel Caloway, and their chili tasted just like Fred and Jim’s Aunt Irma’s. The two women had been feuding for years and would not work together, so they each would run the place two weeks on and two weeks off. Each had a loyal customer following. Fred and Jim were in Hazel’s camp.

Eventually, Barbara and Hazel parted ways — leaving the place to Hazel. When she died in 1971, the Texas Chili Parlor went out of business. Fred kept its memory alive by turning part of his home into a chili parlor for friends and family.

In 1980 Fred and Jim decided to turn what had been a hobby into a real business and opened the first Hard Times Cafe on King Street in Old Town Alexandria, where it still operates today. Since then, hundreds of Hazel’s old customers have found us, along with a throng of new fans each year.

In 2005, USA Today named Hard Times Cafe as one of the 10 best places in the country for a bowl of chili.