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The Daily Citizen

Twist of fate leads Searcy restaurant owner to life's work

BY JANET WILSON

Staff Writer    29 Dec 2002

He was born the son of a row crop farmer in Joy and was one of seven children. For Bobby Quattlebaum, coming from such a large family meant that learning how to work and earn money at an early age was a necessity for the family's survival.

"When I was growing up, if we wanted any spending money, we had to earn it," Quattlebaum said. "There was no such thing as an allowance. We bought our own school clothes and things like that."

At age nine, Quattlebaum recalled picking strawberries to earn money.

"We had tickets that we cashed in at the end of the day," he recalled. "I think we got a dime a quart if we capped them in the field."

In addition to working on the family farm, by age 14 Quattlebaum was also employed after school and on Saturdays as a part-time bell hop at Searcy's only hotel at the time, the Mayfair Hotel.

"It was the in place," Quattlebaum said. "They had a big dining room for banquets, parties and things like that. There were four sisters that owned it. Two of them lived there and two of them ran it."

When Quattlebaum was not working at the Mayfair Hotel, he said he hauled furniture to Little Rock for his cousin, Ivan, who owned a furniture store in downtown Searcy named the Stop and Swap.

Quattlebaum said the one advantage to working during his younger years was that he had money when other kids did not.

"I had friends that had cars, but they didn't have money to buy gas," he said.

By the time he graduated from Rose Bud High School in 1965, Quattlebaum said his dream was to become a heavy equipment operator.

"I wanted to operate the largest bull dozer I could find," he stated.

Even though Quattlebaum got close to achieving his goal by enrolling in a heavy equipment course at Petit Jean Vocational School in Morrilton, he said the military and the threat of being drafted to go to Vietnam changed his plans.

"I checked the draft board to see where my number was. They told me the day I turned 19, I would get my draft notice," he said.

Rather than waiting to be drafted into the army, however, Quattlebaum said in April of1966 he voluntarily joined the Air Force.

"All of my older brothers had all been in the military," he said. "I always felt like it was my duty to go. If I had to do it again I would do it even though I know now it was a political war."

Once enlisted into the Air Force, Quattlebaum said he was immediately sent to San Antonio, Texas for basic training.

"It happened before I had time to think about it a lot," he recalled. "I took my physical one day and was on a plane the next afternoon."

As it turned out, Quattlebaum said the Air Force was in need of cooks. When they asked for volunteers, he said he tried to explain that he was an experienced heavy equipment operator.

"I'm going in and I'm going to be on runways and flight lines," he said of his ambitions for his service in the Air Force.

After his basic training was complete, Quattlebaum said his orders sent him to McDill Air Force Base in Florida. But before those orders could be carried out, he said they were cancelled and he was one of 99 people sent instead to Fort Lee, Virginia to attend cook school.

While in cook school, Quattlebaum said he took several courses such as baking and meat cutting designed to teach him how to cook for a large group.

"We were in class every night for over a month," he said. "Then in the day time, we went into a department that had little individual kitchen areas that were sectioned off. The first meal that we prepared was for six people."

From there, Quattlebaum said the students were then sectioned off into groups of eight people and required to prepare a meal for 250. He said the number then grew to learning how to prepare meals for 4,000.

"Just seeing that much food at one time was really something to see," he stated. "But you concentrated on one thing. You might be the leader one day. The next day you might be mopping the floor. The next day you might be making salads or working on the grill."

Once his training in cook school was complete, Quattlebaum said he went to Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico where he got a position as a cook in the fire department. Although Quattlebaum said he was told it would be two years before he would be sent overseas, he said approximately 11 months after he enlisted, he was sent to Thailand.

"They were shipping them out of basic training so fast that I didn't get my uniforms tailored to fit until about a day or two before I left," he said. "Basic training was so fast about the only thing they were able to teach you was how to march and salute and that was about it."

Quattlebaum said he went to Thailand as a cook at a fighter base for Vietnam.

"There were fighter squadrons stationed there, just about any kind of helicopter squadron you could imagine, and a big reconnaissance group," he recalled. "They flew 24 hours a day."

But once it was discovered that he had taken accounting and typing in school, Quattlebaum said he was transferred to food service accounting.

"We fed 23 and a half hours a day," he said. "There was about 8,000 that ate in the dining hall."

After one year, Quattlebaum said he left Thailand and the Vietnam War behind and was transferred to Hawaii where he spent his final two years in the service. He said he was able to return to Joy Mountain once during that time to marry his fiance, Shirley.

"She sent me a newspaper clipping and told me when we were getting married," he laughed. "I had been there two months. I took leave. Came home. Got married. Then we went back."

During his last year in Hawaii, before returning to Joy Mountain for good in April, 1970, Quattlebaum said he had the opportunity to work directly for John McCain, Junior, father of U.S. Senator John McCain, III, who at that time was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

"He had formed a flag officer's club," Quattlebaum said of the four star Admiral. "You had to have one star or above to be a member of that club. You had to audition for this. There were nine of us that worked there."

Quattlebaum said one of the first things he did once he returned to White County was to buy a car.

"I spent nearly everything I had buying a car," he said. "I drove it four weeks and blew the engine up."

Not wanting to get back into food service, but desperate for money, Quattlebaum said he planned to take a job as a cook at Harding College just long enough to get the car fixed.

"So I went back in the food business and stayed there 13 years," he said.

After several more unsuccessful attempts to go into business for himself, Quattlebaum said in 1984 he was finally able to purchase his own restaurant located at 110 West Race Street.

"I came and looked at it on Thursday, bought it on Friday, and opened up on Monday," he said.

Bobby's Restaurant will begin its 20th year in business in February, 2003.

In additon to owning and operating his own restaurant, Quattlebaum also has a passion for collecting die cast toys and other vintage memorabilia which is reflected in the decor of the restaurant. Numerous items from the past, including a vintage 1940's toaster are displayed on the walls of the establishment. He also teaches four adult Sunday School classes at Westview Missionary Baptist Church.