Cactus Jack's (Temple, Texas)

Cactus Jack's in better times, October 2017 Street View Gather 'round for the tale of strange, sad tale of Cactus Jack's (300 SW H.K. Dodgen Loop in Temple, Texas): built in 1976 as "Market Street Cafe", which it was until the around 2000s, Cactus Jack's Steak House opened in 2003 (from numerous records including BBB and state taxpayer records) by a woman named Donna Passentino, but other references say 2005. Considering a reference to Market Street Cafe can be found in 2003, it's likely that Passentino bought Market Street Cafe in 2003 but closed it and renovated it into Cactus Jack's in 2005, as this article indicates.

Initially, the restaurant had a dinner menu with steaks and other entrees (it was "Cactus Jack's Steak House" after all); however, the death of Ms. Passentino in 2011 was the beginning of the end for Cactus Jack's. By 2012, the restaurant dropped the food options and was simply a bar with no mention of food. (The "Steak House" remained on the signage). Signage outside mentioned looking for a new food partner to convert it to a Mexican restaurant, and it did get a food partner—in 2013, it became Cactus Jack's Sushi Bar & Japanese Restaurant (that was short lived), and became Cactus Jack's Sports Cantina in 2014. A few years after that, Brody's Steakhouse moved in (from a different location) as a restaurant-within-a-bar moved in. Despite the food being an ongoing issue, it really wasn't about the food, it was a bar that locals seemed to like, the type of honky-tonk that serves up cold beer and has karaoke nights.

Served up, anyway. In November 2019, the restaurant burned to the ground from an improperly disposed cigarette, and there's video evidence to show for it. The general manager vowed to rebuild, though that never happened—Cactus Jack's is now just a memory.

(Adapted and expanded from Carbon-izer.)