POINT-OF-VUE By DUKE CONOVER B ob Holman decided in June to hang up his apron after 65 years. And so ends a family restaurant tradition in Paducah. With Bob’s retirement, the Holman House cafeteria restaurant on Irvin Cobb Drive closed its doors June 28. But it didn’t close quietly. “I just hope we have enough food,” said co- owner Regina Vaughn, Bob’s daughter, a week before the Holman House was set to close. She says that folks lined up to get their last tastes of the Holman Italian beef sandwiches, and strawberry or French silk pies. What brought great interest to us at VUE was that back in 1988 the Holman House first opened its doors in the Ritz Hotel at 22nd Street and Broadway. Tat’s also where we opened our office. It didn’t take long at all for the then buffet service to expand its operation within the Ritz and add a downtown location in the Irvin Cobb Hotel. While serving out of both hotel locations, Holman’s seating in the Ritz moved into what is now our office in Suite D and into the existing Tea Room. Regina said the buffet’s need for space kept growing: using a second kitchen in the Ritz and putting more freezers in a laundry area that was at the hotel. “We stretched it out as far as we could,” Regina said. Te popularity of the restaurant outgrew both the Ritz and Irvin Cobb hotels. Te hotel restaurants were closed in 1994. In 1998, the family decided on a final shift in location and moved back to its roots on the city’s southside. INTHEVUE.COM In 1949, Bob, along with his wife, Verna Jean, and her family opened Paducah’s first Dairy Queen on Bridge Street. Te soft serve ice cream joint was wildly popular, but Bob believed it could be even more. So the family opened up the building, installed a conveyor belt for assembly-line style burger production and Bob’s Drive-In was born, Paducah’s first drive-in restaurant. Regina says that same conveyor is being used today. Bob sold the drive-in in the mid-1960s and opened up Roberto’s, Italian restaurants in two locations: southside and at 17th Street and Kentucky Avenue. Roberto’s, like Bob’s, remained a family operation. Verna Jean died in 1980. After Bob remarried, his second wife, Linda, joined the restaurants, and Roberto’s gave way to the Holman House. Regina says that Holman House’s final location, the former Old South Cafeteria, caused Bob and the family to make a few changes to their service. “It was set up as a cafeteria, and we had operated a buffet,” she says. “So we had to do things a little different.” For instance, food preparation changed as Holman House had to get used to completely serving people as they came through the line rather than allowing them to pick and choose appetizers, entrees and desserts at different times during their visit. “We tried to incorporate our sandwiches and salads and get them out in time for everyone to eat at the same time. It was challenging,” Regina says. Learning about Holman House’s history and the connection VUE shares, with us both starting out in the Ritz Hotel, was fascinating. Even Regina has been learning more about its history as Bob started moving toward retirement. She and her father saturated themselves in the restaurant life for so long that never much more than food was talked about over the years. Now, she and her father are finding so many more things to discuss and share. “It’s kind of neat getting to talk to him now about so many different things,” she said. Te smile on her face tells the world she is elated. If another family comes in to purchase the restaurant on Irvin Cobb Drive, she would be pleased. But no plans were made other than to shutter the store. “We have no plans,” she said. “I just stepped out on faith and am letting the Lord handle it for us. “I’m not worried a bit.” So good luck to the Holman family. It is a name that will remain on the lips of Paducahans as will the memory of an Italian beef and a slice of strawberry pie. People say that as long as you love what you do, you will never work for a living. Bob Holman and his family have loved what they have done and proven that adage true. And since we are sharing the same starting point as Holman House in the Ritz Hotel, we pray that we can earn even an inkling of the Holman success and garner just a portion of the respect the family has received. n PROMOTING EVENTS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE JULY 2014 3
