After a freak fire that broke out in January, Texas Rose has officially reopened their doors in their home location at 11816 US-60 following months of renovations.
“Believe it or not we actually had no damage to the kitchen,” owner Shane Dyer said. “Because of the smoke damage, we had a bunch of barn wood on the walls and it just absorbed all of that smoke.”
The fire that caused the shutdown was an unfortunate accident - it began in the men’s restroom, burning through both restroom ceilings and the office. Sparked by firewood that hadn’t been moved back to the counter, the hood over the grill got so hot the studs on the other side of the wall caught fire. Now, according to Dyer, almost everything in the building is new. They’ve redone every surface, including the floors, ceilings, electrical, and a new roof. Even the equipment is new.
“It’s a brand new restaurant again,” Dyer said.
The Texas Rose family provides jobs for 40 people, the majority of whom have worked there for over ten years. Some of the servers and kitchen staff have been there for more than 20 years, and Dyer said he has managers that have been with him for more than 30. To ensure his people could work, Dyer moved the entire operation over to the old Dyer’s location and opened back up there on Valentine’s Day while renovations got underway.
“It kind of felt like I was home again. I hated that the place was closed,” Dyer said, adding that his brother ran Dyer’s BBQ but he had been a partner.
The Dyer’s BBQ location in Amarillo is still open, and when asked if there was a shot at bringing the restaurant back to Pampa, Dyer said he wouldn’t be opposed to it. The only thing stopping him, he said, was a concern he could hire enough people as it would take almost 50 to open the place up the right way.
“I may put up a Help Wanted ad and see if I can hire a few,” Dyer said.
No stranger to the restaurant business, Dyer runs Chubby’s Burrito Company with his son Jason, and Flip’s Burgers with his son Tanner. He and his wife own Hoagies, and they have a second Texas Rose location in Canyon. He is still partners with his brother in the Amarillo Dyer’s BBQ location.
As for Texas Rose in Pampa, it first opened in 1997 at a location in front of the mall until Dyer got the opportunity to buy the property beside Best Western from Kim and Craig Jones and moved the establishment there.
“I felt like it was more suited to be a steakhouse, so we opened up another restaurant at the mall location and then sold it a few years later,” Dyer said.
What sets Texas Rose apart from other restaurants in the area is the extra money they spend on high-quality products, which Dyer said are of higher quality than you can buy in the grocery store. But it’s also their cooking style - Texas Rose cooks everything over mesquite wood and an open flame.
“Everybody says they have a mesquite grille but ours doesn’t even have a burner on it,” Dyer said. “We literally put log starters on there and we cook over an open fire every day.”
Without any advertising beyond a few of the servers making posts on social media, Texas Rose opened quietly on Monday, July 24, and according to Dyer, they had a great day. By Tuesday, they’d had a record lunch crowd. But when asked if there was anything else he wanted Pampa to know about the place, he pointed to his crew.
“I’ve got a lot of really good people that work for me and I can’t tell you how loyal they’ve been to me through all of this,” Dyer said. “It just keeps getting better and better, and everybody’s glad to be home.”
