A Big Green-Eyed Steer

When I rolled into Phoenix, AZ. on a February day in 1959, a blizzard was raging in my hometown in Western Pennsylvania. Phoenix was different. It was like I had died and gone to Heaven.

I could smell the orange blossoms from the citronella and orange trees along Baseline Road where thousands of acres produced flowers and citrus fruit on farms owned by Japanese growers. The temperature at 5 p.m. was 82 degrees.

My Car

It was a white Impala convertible and the top was down. I luxuriated in the warm dry Arizona air.

I couldn't wait to send a postcard home and tell my family what Arizona and Phoenix were like.

Central Avenue was full of skyscrapers including:

the Westward Ho Hotel, where a big band was playing nightly. I turned right on Van Buren Street and drove until I saw in the distance a huge head of a steer. The steer had long horns and green eyes and marked the entrance to Bill Johnson's Big Apple Restaurant, home of deep dish apple pie, bottomless coffee, and big cowboy breakfasts that could fill the hungriest stomach.

A statue of a cigar store Indian...

...greeted my brother Legs and me as we entered the place. Attractive waitresses wearing cowgirl blouses, skirts, boots and holstered guns greeted us.

One, a pert blond, said in a twangy voice, 'You folks Eastern dudes?'

'Yes, Ma'am, we're from Pennsylvania,' I answered.

'Welcome to the real West,' she said, smiling. 'I'm Ginny. Do you take your coffee black'

Bill Johnson was the owner of the establishment. He was a tall handsome cowboy, stuntman, actor, gambler, hypnotist and inventor. He came around to our table and introduced himself. When he found out I was a writer looking for a job, he asked if I played poker.

'I'm starting to learn,' I said.

'No problem. There are plenty of games in town. I'll teach you. Just come around when we're not busy.'

I quickly discovered that the Big Apple Restaurant was always busy. It was the most popular restaurant in the Valley of the Sun.

Johnson had a nighttime radio show...

...that he did live out of a booth at the side of the restaurant. He played Western music, interviewed local dignitaries and customers, and told wild stories with a western touch.

'Death Valley Days,' the long-running western television series, was being shot at several Arizona locations -- Apache Junction, the Superstition Mountains, and Tombstone, about 120 miles south of Phoenix. The entire crew from the TV series, including actor-director Russell Hayden, would often drop into the restaurant for dinner.

Johnson, a member of Screen Actors Guild, sometimes played bit parts in the series. He and Hayden, who had played the role of Lucky in the Hopalong Cassidy TV series, were good friends. They played poker, were drinking companions and ran wild in the starry Arizona nights.

Although Johnson was married...

he didn't try to hide his attraction to other women. For years he had an affair with Rabbbit, an attractive young redhead who was hostess of the restaurant. Bill's wife Gene ignored the affair and conducted herself with dignity as she managed the Big Apple and tried in vain to manage her husband.

I found a job on a radio station and later went to work as a reporter on a newspaper. My brother Legs, an aspiring singer, was hired as a house painter. He teamed up with a guitarist named Dave Pritchett and the two of them signed a recording contract with VIV Records. They never made it big in the music business, but they had fun trying.

The Big Apple menu included Big Bonanza Breakfast, the Range Rider, Pig Out, Wrangler Special, Bill's Bottomless Drinks, and his popular deep-dish apple and cherry pie. The thought of that pie still makes my taste buds tingle.

Over the years

Johnson opened seven restaurants in the Valley of the Sun. He passed away and his family became involved in disputes involving money and power. Eventually, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy was declared and after 59 years, the Big Apple chain went out of business.

On May 24, 2015, the Big Apple at 37th Street and Van Buren served its last customer.

That day you had to wait up to an hour and a half to be seated. Everybody was there, including old-time customers who brought their children and grandchildren, former waitresses, and people who wanted to take a final look at the restaurant that had served them good food for so many years.

One grizzled cowboy who described himself as a wrangler and character actor said, 'There'll never be another place like this. Bill was one of a kind.'

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).