The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, and its colorful history will be the subject of a documentary by a Tennessee-based filmmaker, reported the Amarillo Globe-News.
Audrey Kalivoda of Mesquite 90 Productions has been gathering footage at the 53-year-old restaurant the past several weeks.
Co-owner Bobby Lee hired Kalivoda to make the film, which promises rare old footage:
The video, which will be sold in the Big Texan gift store, will include interviews with early managers and visitors and old photographs and advertising footage, Lee said.
“We were able to go into the old video archives,” he said. “We’ve come up with stuff I’d never seen before, commercials from back in the ’70s.
“It’s a lot of fun watching her (Kalivoda) work and discover. She got a grassroots understanding of what people come for, the mystique, the myth, the stories.”
The Big Texan began on Route 66 in Amarillo in 1960. It moved shortly after the opening of Interstate 40 in the early 1970s after traffic dwindled sharply on Amarillo Boulevard, aka 66.
(Image of the Big Texan’s sign by bernachoc, via Flickr)
I’ve been waiting for this documentary for a long time. Is there any word on it?