Sonny Look: The John Wayne of restaurateurs
I will never forget the first time I saw Sonny Look. My family went to Look’s Sir-Loin House to celebrate a special occasion in 1960, a time before eating out was common or Houston had become a national restaurant capital. Not long after the hostess seated us, a man approached our table, a largerthan-life kind of guy wearing a red brocade jacket. He wasncredibly friendly and spoke to all of us—even me, an eight-year-old—as if we were the most important customers who ever walked in the door. I loved the four different flavors of butter, especially the honey butter. My parents raved about the steaks, and my dad appreciated the complimentary glass of wine Look offered to the adults. Since Texas law still prohibited liquor by the drink except in private clubs, that free glass of wine had tremendous appeal!
Look won us over on that first visit, and we celebrated many special occasions and just ordinary days at his restaurants over the years because you could always depend on a first-class experience. Little did I know then what the future held. Twenty years later, my husband, Tom Harwell, went to work for Sonny at Sunbelt Hotels, and he and his wife, Carole, became our dear friends. Recently Carole sat down with me to share memories of this Houston hospitality legend.
Garret Dawson “Sonny” Look was born on April 21, 1919, in Caldwell, Texas, the oldest of four children. He attended Brenham High School and at age fourteen took a job at the New York Café on Main Street in Brenham, just off the town square. He held every position from busboy to manager, and at age twenty-one, bought the café from the owner. Uncommon for a small town, the menu included Alaskan salmon, oysters, flounder, veal, seven different cuts of beef, and a wide array of appetizers and sides.
Sonny married Mary Reynolds of Brenham and, in 1942, enlisted in the Navy as a ship’s cook 1st class. He sold the café to the owner of a cab company with a “gentleman’s agreement” that Look could buy it back when he returned. He served on the USS Beagle in the Pacific until 1945. When he came back to Brenham, the owner refused to sell, so Sonny packed up Mary and their son Gary, who was born in 1944, and moved to Houston, which offered greater opportunities
Look first sold sandwiches for a tavern on Riesner Street, but after six months the owner told Look he was too good for the establishment. From 1946 to 1948, he operated the Quitman Coffee Shop, which had twenty-five seats and a counter. A year later, he leased the former Lark Restaurant at 715 Quitman and changed the name to Sonny Look’s. Greg Ortale, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau (GHCVB) reminisced, “The stories are legendary . . . People would come in and order off the menu, when he first started . . . then he would run next door to the store to buy it and then come back and cook it.” Sonny Look’s started with forty-six seats and grew to 229 seats. In 1950, Look added a building with a larger pit than the Quitman location to take care of the bar-b-q and catering business. The catering operation serviced groups ranging from ten to 9,000 guests. He had seven trucks and two twenty-seven-foot trailers with bar-b-q pits, and rented more when needed.
Mary worked side by side with Sonny primarily as the cashier and office manager until her death from cancer in 1964. Gary Look remembers his parents working “very hard, seven days a week and holidays to build the restaurant and reputation they had. They seldom took a vacation.” To spend more time with them, Gary would go to the restaurant where he helped out doing a variety of different jobs.
In 1959, Look moved to the “outskirts of town.” He opened Look’s Sir Loin House with 472 seats at 6112 Westheimer in the Briargrove Shopping Center. It was here that Sonny began wearing the flamboyant jackets made by his tailor and friend Frank Ortiz of Galveston. People went crazy for them! At one point, he had four restaurants and kept coats at all of them. Carole recalled, “When he would go from restaurant to restaurant, he would change his coat. He would tell people, ‘If you see me in this coat twice in one night, the coat’s yours.’”
Carole met Sonny on March 31, 1967, when she and her family dined at the Sir-Loin House to celebrate her mother’s birthday. After finding out Carole was a new Houstonian, Sonny invited them to the club for a drink (he had coffee; he never drank with the customers). It took him three months to convince Carole to go out with him despite a shared interest in horseback riding. They spent a lot of time together, and one day Carole realized she loved him— ”What’s not to love about Sonny?” she asked. They married a year later and had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1972.
In April 1967, Look opened his premiere restaurant, Look’s Sir-Loin Inn at 9810 South Main near the Astrodome. The 37,000 square foot facility had 1,400 seats on one floor. It was the largest free-standing eatery in Texas and the third largest in the country.
The Look legend had it that beef off the loin of a grainfed steer so impressed England’s King Henry VIII that he knighted the steak “Sir-Loin.” The Look steakhouses took their English theme from this story and were famous for the knight on a white horse standing guard outside. Look had four white horses. Two worked in town, and two vacationed in the country; they would switch places every two weeks. The horses stabled in Greenridge near the Sir-Loin House. One walked to the Westheimer location, and the other traveled to South Main in a trailer.
Look owned all of his restaurants independently except for five bar-b-q barns he owned with partners. He continued to do business on a handshake throughout his long career. Ortale called him “a true Texan,” adding, “his handshake was all you needed.” Look’s favorite restaurant story involved a close friend and frequent customer who stopped by the Sir-Loin House to pick up a box of steaks to take home to cook. Leaving in a hurry, he did not notice that he drove off in the wrong car. It looked just like his car, and the keys were in it, so off he went. The car’s real owner was not happy to discover the mistake. For more on this story, click here.