The Rose Bar B Q blooms

There is an immediate comfort inside The Rose Bar B Q on West University Boulevard. It could have been a place of stress and anxiety, because it was born under such conditions, but it has offered relief to those who patronize it and those who work there.

The employees are mostly family and friends. Beverly Rowe is the owner, and her daughters, Fawn and Lucie, work there full-time, while her son, Tommy, helps cook the rib-eye steaks Fridays.

Beverly’s sister, Cathy Kee, and best friend, Lisa Blanton — whose daughter, Bonnie, also helps out — do just about everything at the restaurant, a small place where you can order from a window outside or eat in the dining room among the random signs and paintings given since it opened the day after Thanksgiving in 2001 (it was originally a little east of the NW Loop 338 until February 2003).

Having family and friends around helps through the harder times, Beverly said. It certainly helped when less than two months after they first opened, Beverly’s husband, Robert, had lower back surgery and, following two more surgeries in the next year, became physically disabled.

On top of that, Beverly had used all her retirement funds to open the restaurant and had taken out a significant loan.

She conceded that it was a tough time, but her determination never wavered. Partly because Robert didn’t allow it.

“I thought he was dying,” Beverly said. “Everybody thought he was dying. But from the first day we started cooking, I never looked backed. We couldn’t.”

Robert, who helps cook the catfish on some Fridays, frequently sends off his children with a quote. Something like, “It is your attitude and not your aptitude that determines your altitude,” or, as Fawn recalls, “have a terrific day every day.”

The business grew slowly. An honorable mention in 2003 from Texas Monthly in the magazine’s top 50 barbecue restaurants in the state was unexpected, but the Rowes took it as a sign that something was going right.

And if a storm needed to be weathered, at least the Rowes had the restaurant and the restaurant had these employees.

When Beverly asked her mother-in-law, Carolyn Skidmore, to help, the latter said, “OK, but I don’t know anything about it, you have to tell me.”

When the Rowes adopted Lucie and she worked at the restaurant, “they gave me a life,” Lucie said.

When Kee came to Beverly after a frustrating first day at another local restaurant, “I just came here and let her know I needed them. I’ve been here ever since. It’s been more than a year,” Kee said.

They all genuinely like the food, which began earning a reputation when Robert would go on his river trips with a group of 25 buddies and did the cooking. He and Beverly then catered different functions, where they were told they should open a restaurant.

The restaurant’s name is a play on their last name and a nod to the flower’s theme in the family — Beverly had a white rose design on her wedding dress; Robert wore a white rose on his belt during the wedding; a rose bush is planted behind the restaurant.

Texas Monthly highlighted the Cowboy Pie, which has chip beef, corn chips and beans. The meats — including brisket, turkey and chicken — are mesquite-smoked. The pecan and buttermilk pies and the cheesecake, a Friday-only special, are homemade. So are the sides, such as the coleslaw and German potato salad.

“When people come by, we want them to feel like they’re going to a favorite aunt and uncle’s place,” Robert said. “You don’t feel rushed or pressured. You feel like you’re at home.”

The rose bar b q

>> Where: 4740 W. University Blvd.

>> Hours: Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.- 9 p.m.