CHEYENNE — The spirit of Elvis is alive and well at a favorite local breakfast spot on Lincolnway in Wyoming’s capital city.
The spot is aptly named the R&B Breakfast Club, where it’s always 1957, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll still rules and all the breakfasts come in Elvis-sized portions.
But what really makes the atmosphere of this place hum is all the Elvis Presley memorabilia. It covers the walls, the tables, the menu and just about every free square inch of space in the diner. And it’s nicely accented by the cute turquoise walls and vintage checkerboard floor.
The Elvis collection started as a bit of a gimmick, former R&B Breakfast Club owner Bill Garcia told Cowboy State Daily. But it didn’t stay that way for long.
“You know you have to have some kind of a theme for a diner,” he said. “And initially, I had thought about dedicating the restaurant to veterans because I have a lot of photos.”
But he ultimately decided he didn’t want to show the photos in the restaurant, so he turned instead to a few Elvis items he had on hand.
“I’ve always liked him,” Garcia said. “I love his music, and he’s got like five different octaves in his voice. He can switch that voice up and it can do anything. I just love his voice. He can put you at ease or he can rock you, whatever you want.”
So Garcia named the restaurant R&B Breakfast Club, which is a little play on words. The letters can stand for Rose and Bill, Garcia explained, but Elvis also did rhythm and blues, landing two records in the R&B top five in 1957.
Those records were “Jailhouse Rock/Treat me Nice,” which hit No. 1, and “All Shook Up,” which landed at No. 5.
A Life Of Its Own
The moment Garcia placed his Elvis memorabilia on the walls, it seemed to take on a life of its own. Customers started bringing him more memorabilia over the next 20 years, helping him build one of the most sizable public collections of Elvis memorabilia in Wyoming.
Not all of the pieces that were in his collection remain at the restaurant. There are one or two very special items Garcia took home.
“There was a piece that a little girl made for me,” he said. “Well, I call her a little girl. She was a grown woman, but she was in a wheelchair and she didn’t have use of her hands. So she did the piece with her mouth, with her lips. And it’s fantastic.”
The woman goes to Memphis every year for Elvis week, Garcia said, and she loves to make people happy with her work.
“A piece like that should have cost me $500, $600,” Garcia said. “She just charged me $35 and wouldn’t take a dime more.”
But most of the items have remained with the R&B diner, where they have a forever home, the restaurant’s newest owner Val Martin told Cowboy State Daily.
“People are still bringing things in,” she said. “And you know, I usually try to tell them it’s very difficult for us to find a place to put anything new, but yeah, we do try.”
Martin said she’s never tried to have any of the items appraised. Their value to her is the spirit they bring to the restaurant.
Cleaning the collection is a big chore, Martin added, but something she does at least once a year.
“We take it all down, off of all the shelves all over the place, and try to dust it off and get it all cleaned up once a year,” she said. “And every now and then I will find a new piece that I hadn’t noticed before.”
Rose Garcia, meanwhile, brings the restaurant a new Elvis calendar every year that Martin hangs up by the cash register.
The Burrito Doctor Is In
One of the things Elvis is well-known for is his hearty appetite. He loved southern-style food in gigantic portions, and his favorite meal of the day was breakfast.
Biscuits fried in butter or bacon grease, crispy bacon or sausage, eggs fried in butter, and a little — or a lot — of gravy to round everything out.
And those are exactly the kind of breakfasts diners will find at the R&B Breakfast Club, with a few more specialties thrown in, like its trademark breakfast burritos smothered in a choice of gravy or chili or both.
“We’ve also got pancakes, we have the Garcia special, which is pretty delicious. It’s an omelet with chili on there, and it’s got sausage, bacon, ham and hashbrowns,” Martin said. “And it’s got the vegetables — onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, tomato.”
The diner also serves really good lunches in huge portions as well.
Martin’s favorite item on the menu, in fact, is a lunch item. She likes the enchilada, which has a couple of secret ingredients.
“It’s made with some Fritos chips and then the chili, and you can do chicken or steak, and I like the beef,” she said. “We also have really good burgers.”
That Signature Chili
The chili recipes are all from Garcia, Martin adds, who comes around every Monday to help with deliveries.
Martin often tells Garcia to taste the chili while he’s there to make sure it still tastes the same.
“It’s his recipe,” she said. “I really want to make sure that we keep it the same as far as how things taste.”
Martin said she has toyed with the idea of adding a few Elvis-themed food items to the menu, like a fried peanut butter banana sandwich or banana pancakes.
The latter may not be on the menu, she added, but is definitely something the cooks can make if a customer asks.
But the menu, like the restaurant, doesn’t have a lot of room left, Martin added, so additional items might be something that has to wait for another day.
Martin said if she ever gets the opportunity, she’ll expand the footprint of the restaurant. But for now, it’s going to remain first-come, first-served at this popular diner, with takeout always an option.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com
Renée Jean can be reached at Renee@CowboyStateDaily.com.
