By Jennifer Litz
Editor
January 4, 2008

Want to name the restaurant that Zentner’s Steak House will become after Henry Hogeda Jr. reopens it in February?

Well, Hogeda is open to suggestions. He is contemplating naming the restaurant “Henry Jr.’s Steak House.” But that’s not set in stone.

Neither is what all the Steak House will have on its menu, or the décor that will be inside. But Hogeda has an idea. He is polling and perusing famous Steak Houses throughout Texas for ideas. Like The Little Red Barn in San Antonio, and the Perini Ranch Steak House in Buffalo Gap, Texas, right outside of Abilene.

“Ralph Hernandez [of Little Red Barn in San Antonio] has all the girls dressed up in, like, cheerleader uniforms,” Hogeda says. “Just something different, that’s what we’re looking at [doing]. We’ll have the Country Western music and all that.”

They’ll also have menus on the wall, Hogeda says, and add fish and lobster to the standard Steak House fare. They’re also looking at co-opting some of Perini’s famous standards.

“They’re real famous,” Hogeda gushes. “They cook for the White House—it’s just a little hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere, they have a slab out there. [We] like some ribs we’re going to bring over here. Then Ralph Hernandez does different breads and soups that he does in San Antonio . . . we’ll bring it all together.” Wall-painted menus would also be a nod to The Little Red Barn.

The recipes will not be “stolen” from anyone; only cues and ideas will be taken. For the Hogeda family has their own recipes and seasonings, stored and formulated since Henry Sr. started in the restaurant business when he was just a young boy.

Henry Hogeda’s Culinary Legacy

When the historical Zentner’s opens as something completely different after a kitchen retrofitting and “facelift,” according to Hogeda Jr., it will have more history than it did when just the Zentner family owned it.

“He started as a dishwasher at 11 years old,” Hogeda Jr. says of his father. “He was walking by and some man offered him a job as a dishwasher at a steak house. That was yesterday, and today here we are.”

Hogeda Jr. says his father met his mother when he was a dishwasher and she was a waitress at the Lowake Inn in Lowake, Texas.

Hogeda Sr. opened his own diner several years later, in the spot where Franco’s is now. Hogeda Jr. says his father originally had only wanted a “little burger joint.” He’s gotten much more: Hogeda enterprises include Henry’s, Papa Henry’s, Panchitos, and several incarnations of Henry’s Original Diner. The Nogadas have had a steak house before—15 years ago, Little Henry’s Steak House was where Don Oscars is now.

Hogeda Jr. himself had run the Enrique’s downtown at the paseo. Then he went to Abilene about seven years ago after a divorce to run Enrique’s in Abilene, which the Hogeda family had bought from Betty Zentner, cousin of Karen Zentner (Zentner’s Steak House). Hogeda came back this past summer and rose to the challenge of adopting the historic Zentner’s Steak House soon after. It was a welcome proposition: “There’s too many of us in our family for one restaurant,” he says.

The Zentner/Hogeda link goes back a ways: Hogeda senior had been a dishwasher at Zentner’s when he was starting his culinary career. And a little known fact among hungry San Angeloans is that the Steak House and Original Diner have used the same on-site butcher for years. Hogeda Jr. will continue to use that meat man for the new endeavor. Because, for the Nogadas, it’s all about family.

“We’re a family where we care about what we do and believe in our product,” Hogeda says. “We’re not perfect, we’re not going to please everyone. But on any given day--you’ll find five in my family--we’re here day and night, day and night. In this business, it’s the hours we have to put in, and we believe in customer service, getting the food out real quick, no matter how busy we are, nice and hot.”

And the Zentners? What do they think about the switch? “I’m real excited about it,” says Karen. “It’s sad to let [the restaurant] go, but we’ve been here a long time, and it’s time for us to get out and rest for a while. My partner is a rancher, and he wants to continue ranching completely, and I plan to spend some time concentrating on things I’ve neglected for many years—like my grandkids.”