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A longhorn skull, UT stickers, Texas license plates and a giant stuffed armadillo. On the ladies restroom, a "Don't Mess With Texan Women" sticker. Empty Lonestar bottles litter the bar top.
At first glance, this could be any Texan bar. But on a closer look, stuffed piranhas and indigenous South American weapons and instruments seem slightly out of place. Welcome to The Yellow Rose of Texas. Location: the upper Amazon of Iquitos, Peru.
Unlike the Austin club of the same name, this ain't a strip bar. It's a popular restaurant that also offers guide trips, advice and showers for weary tourists. A small city of about 400,000, Iquitos is reachable only by boat or by plane because it is surrounded by the Amazon River and its hundreds of tributaries. So if you happen to find yourself there, you're most likely doing a jungle trek. And sometimes, eating jungle cuisine, like fish or majás, a large rodent, gets tiresome. So how 'bout some ribs and margaritas?
At least, that's what Louisiana-born and Texas-raised proprietor Gerald Mayeaux thought when he opened The Yellow Rose of Texas in 2001. He wanted not just a restaurant, but a 24-hour Texas hospitality house.
"You have to treat everyone who walks in your office as your cousin, and how do you treat your cousin?" Mayeaux asked, proudly wearing one of his many Longhorn T-shirts.
Mayeaux's Longhorn connection is not as obscure as it seems. Born in Crowley, La., Mayeaux said he was always a Longhorn fan. His family finally moved to Houston when he was 5, and he "became a real Texan." Mayeaux said college football and baseball became a big past time and "UT was always my team."
So when he got a baseball scholarship to UT, he finally became an official Longhorn.
"Everything I learned for life, I learned at The University of Texas at Austin," he said. "My preparation for life was The University of Texas."
Mayeaux attended UT from 1967 to 1969 before starting his own business. Later, his daughter would continue the Longhorn tradition, graduating with a liberal arts degree in 1989.
Mayeaux's small business eventually led him to move up in the petroleum industry, which would take him all over the world before he finally settled in Peru in 1982. Retiring from the industry, he moved to Iquitos in 1994, opening several tourist attractions from a floating hotel to this genuine Texas restaurant.
"I have never met a more die-hard Longhorn in my life," said Robin Gerrow, UT's vice president for public affairs.
Gerrow found herself in the midst of the Amazon last summer when she was writing about a UT linguistic project. Mayeaux, she said, "is a true Texan."
Quoted as a must-see in every major Peru guidebook, including "The Lonely Planet," The Yellow Rose of Texas follows a specific program geared by its proud owner.
"A restaurant can't be just a restaurant," Mayeaux said. "There are five hooks here that keep everyone coming back." Among these "hooks" are a hanging museum of natural jungle creatures including piranha and anaconda hides, a European-style patio with natural, exotic wood tables and a Texan bar with saddle bar stools.
There is also a game room with a dartboard and a television with 24-hour, seven-days-a-week sports and news. And when a Longhorn game is on? Everybody in the restaurant is watching, Longhorn or not. (If you're not in the mood for a game, you can step outside and sit in the shade in a New Orleans-style courtyard.)
To top off the Texan feel, the waitresses are dressed in authentic UT cheerleading uniforms complete with the "Hook 'em Horns" slogan printed on their backs - unless the uniforms are in the wash. Then they don Longhorn T-shirts and jeans.
"I feel like a Texan most days even though I've never been to Texas," said Blanca, one of Mayeaux's employees, who is now engaged to an Austinite she met in Peru. But in Peru, unlike Austin, burnt orange is not a popular shade. When Mayeaux tried to order material for the uniforms, he said it was very difficult and expensive just to get the burnt-orange tint. And even the waitresses admit that they'd prefer a different color.
"Orange is not my favorite," Bianca said, laughing.
Mayeaux said he prides his restaurant as being UT all the way from his French toast (made from a secret recipe) to finger-licking good BBQ sauce with 18 ingredients.
"I have a huge Texas-style smoking grill," he said, checking on ribs that have been smoked for almost 24 hours.
A nearby patron smacks her lips.
"The food here is tremendous," said Monica Grau, a tourist from Germany. Tourists from all corners of the world take a break from jungle-trekking at Mayeaux's restaurant.
"I come here every summer for vacation, and I always get some ribs," said Dan Middleton, a New Jersey native.
But Mayeaux's resume isn't limited to petroleum and ribs. He was also the first and only North American tourism director in Peru, serving as the director of tourism for the Loreto department from 1998 to 2002. During his tenure, Mayeaux saw a 153-percent increase in tourism and helped the city gain publicity through the Travel Channel, The New York Times and other guides and periodicals.
While he's officially retired from his post, he continues to provide tourism services for his clientele.
"Gerald helped us get a boat to the butterfly farm in Padre Cocha for less than $1," said Maya Anderson of Auckland, New Zealand.
As the evening draws to a close, Mayeaux starts getting sentimental.
"I can't tell you how great UT was for me," he announces at full volume at a going-away party for U.S. Marines stationed in Iquitos.
A few Texas Exes among the group nod their heads, balancing their beers on the saddle bar stools. One marine pipes up: "Here in the Amazon, it's nice to have a touch of home."
