[Jazz music]

Gene Tumbs
Well, I learned to cook many years ago, I guess.

Being from the country you know, born and raised on a farm.

And there was sixteen of us, so somebody had to learn how to cook.

[Jazz music]

Sandra Black
I was working at Fiesta, the grocery store, and I just happened to be 
on the bus one day and I say "Gene's".

I just passed by and I saw the sign, and so when I got to my mom's 
house, I called back up here.

I wrote down the number and I called back, and I was like, is this 
Eugene from down in benz?

And he was like, yeah.

Gene Tumbs
She was on the bus one day and she passed by here, and she saw this, 
and somebody told her that this was my place.

Sandra Black
And at the time he had just hired somebody.  Somebody was supposed to 
show up the next day.

And so he told me to check back with him in a couple of weeks, and 
that person never showed up.

And it was like a couple of weeks before I came back.

When I came back one day, it was lunch time and they were pretty busy.

And he told me, "Can you be here the next day?"  And I showed up the 
next day and I've been here ever since.

We get along fine.

In the whole two-and-a-half years that I've worked here at Gene's, 
we've only had two arguments.

Only two, so that's actually good for us to be here everyday all day together.

So only two disagreements you know, but everything worked out.

Because I enjoy the work that I'm doing now, so I have no problem 
with it at all.

Customer
My grandmother had this compliment that she gives somebody, and it's 
that "he's a good christian" and that's not just meaning that he's a 
church man or something like that.

It's more of how he conducts himself with people.

Even if he's having a bad day, he's smiling.

And you know, I don't know if it's a forced smile or whatever it is, 
but what it does is it radiates, and it gets to everybody that's 
around him.

It's considered an infectious thing, you know.

And Gene's just a real nice guy, you know what I mean?  Just a 
genuine good person.

I know that a lot of people that come there, that eat there; you 
know, they can't necessarily afford to eat at the time.

A lot of people are just broke.

And I don't know him ever to turn anybody away hungry.

Gene Tumbs
Soul food to me; I would say it's just rice, gravy, meat, potatoes, 
greens, yams.

Most people get offensive at chitlins, things like that.

I don't deal with the chitlins; backbones, or what they call them, 
neckbones, whatever.

I like things like that, you know gravy-like stuff with rice, or potatoes.

And to me, that's sit down, finger-lickin' food-that's soul food to me.

Doesn't matter who cooks it to me, that's soul food. [Laughing]

Sandra Black
I don't know because, to me, it's just food that's seasoned.

You know, just cook your food with seasoning.

You know, add your bacon, add your onion and your bell pepper.

But onion and bell pepper don't go on everything.

It doesn't go on everything but, you need to just add seasonings to your food.

And it makes it taste very well.

Cop customer
Gene's is quite notorious, with a lot of people I know.

Camerawoman
What do you mean by that?

Cop customer
Well, it's like, you know, most of the people-if you want to get some 
soul food, this is like the spot in Austin.

I don't know if there are very many other places you can go besides Gene's.

Sandra Black
They travel quite a distance for Thursday's special. [Laughing]

They will come for Thursday's special.

Cameraman
And what's Thursday's special?

Sandra Black
It's smothered pork chops with rice, gravy, collard greens, candied 
yams, cornbread.

Customer
You know, the pork chops are signature.

I acutally coined the phrase, "pork chop day".

Yeah, it was a trip because I was-I come up here just about every 
other day, or whatever.

And Thursday's I just started noticing, Thursday's pork chop day.

So, one day I came in, and I started running and screaming down the 
sidewalk, "It's pork chop day!  It's pork chop day!"

And, there it was.

Gene Tumbs
And they had a couple of guys who come in; this was last year.

And they came in, and we always joke about the gravy, you know, how 
good the gravy is and all of that.

And this guy asked, "These pork chops are really good.  Who makes the 
pork chops?"

Sandra Black
Gene told them, "That was her."

And they said, "What size shoe does she wear?  I need to buy her 
another pair of shoes."

Gene Tumbs
I said, "Sandra back there, she did that gravy.  She put her foot in it."

He said, "Man, that's really good.  Go ask her what size shoe she 
wears, I wanna buy her some more leather."

[Laughing]

Sandra Black
"Because I know she just wore the leather off making this food.  It was great."

And we just laughed that day.

Gene Tumbs
[Laughing]

I liked to die.  He wanted her to put some more leather in that gravy.

Customer
I don't know anyone that has anything bad to say about Gene, except 
he only does his pork chops on Thursday.

That's the worst thing I have to say about Gene.

Gene, you need to do pork chops everyday.

Sandra Black
It's because we love what we're doing that everything comes out so great.

Gene Tumbs
It's like a dream come true, you know.

Camerawoman
So you think you're going to stick with this restaurant for a while?

Gene Tumbs
Oh yeah, yeah, I'll be here.

Once I expand, I think that's gonna be just about all I can handle really.

Sandra Black
We were looking at doing a lot of different things, once we expand.

Right now, we just don't have that much space for anything.

Gene Tumbs
My intention was to just make this whole place, you know, just light 
this whole building up, and draw customers from downtown.

I wanna do some late night things, well not late night, but like weekends.

Friday and Saturday, probably till ten or eleven o'clock, outdoor music.

I have a stage out here also; I've already began to work on it.

As you know, I have my lighting. [Laughing]

And we're going to put a cover on this part of the deck.

We're gonna cover this over, so if we shoule happen to have rain, 
everybody can be under the covers.

And we're also gonna put a top over the stage.

Sandra Black
We're gonna grow, and we're gonna get another restaurant.

We're gonna be able to open another restaurant, hopefully within the 
next couple of years.

So we are gonna expand.

Gene Tumbs
Thank you very much and come again.

[Register door opens]

[Jazz music]

Gene Tumbs
I also opened up a little business of my own, on the side, and I had 
a little game room, sweet shop thing like that.

And I had my little sign up on it that said, Geno's Too Hot to Trot.

And I used to tell my brothers all the time, "One day, you'll see my 
name in lights."

[Laughing]

When I brought him-he came here to visit, I stopped over there on the 
corner by the little liquor store.

I stopped on the corner there, just as soon as he came into town.

And we got out of the car and I told him to take a look this way, and 
he looked and saw my name, and he said, "Gene!"

[Laughing]