Feb. 10—Through years in the restaurant, retail and venue businesses, Sue Vanderford liked being “the meeter and greeter.”
She found ways to do that as co-owner of Cowboys Bar-B-Q and Eight Ten Ranch & Cattle Co. event center. She still does it with her daughter at Pinon Creek Trading Co.
“I wanted to be the boss,” Vanderford said. “I just always wanted to own my own business.”
Vanderford and her husband, David, opened the restaurant in 1978 after buying a place on York Street called the Dairy Hut.
“My husband was a fireman in Tulsa, he went on vacation and we came down and bought the restaurant,” she said. “He was on vacation for three more weeks after we bought the restaurant.”
Vanderford recalled meeting guests while her husband cooked in back. They also did a brisk catering business, including many years for troops stationed at Camp Gruber.
“David would get down there at 2:30 a.m. and start breakfast,” she said. “I’d get there at 4:30 or 5, We’d go out and feed breakfast. Then come back and do dinner.”
She said the largest job was 2,500 troops on the ground for 30 days.
“We had them seven days a week before they deployed to Afghanistan,” she said.
Vanderford recalled catering as many as 9,000 for a Westinghouse gathering near Tulsa. She recalled one catering job in Port Arthur, Texas.
While operating the restaurant, Vanderford took on work at Pinon Creek, then at Eight Ten Ranch.
The Vanderfords retired from restaurant work in September, 2021.
“We had buyers for restaurant, so we decided to retire,” Sue Vanderford said. “We retired menus and the recipes.”
They also sold the venue.
“When we sold the restaurant, we thought of maybe moving out of town, but we know everybody here, so why would we move,” she said.
Instead, they built a new house south of Muskogee and recently celebrated their 50th anniversary. Sue Vanderford said they enjoy refurbishing old cars and currently have a 1964 Lincoln with suicide doors that open in the middle.
“We’re ready to do some traveling, some fun stuff,” she said.
Sacrifices made to please customers
Sue Vanderford recalls the challenges in the restaurant’s early days.
“We had one employee,” she said. “We worked open to close every day, and we did it for seven days a week. We were closed Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day. Then we were able to expand and hire somebody else.”
Many early customers came from a nearby racetrack.
“We would stay open until almost midnight on Friday nights because people would come after the races to eat,” she said. “There was no place to go at that point that was open late.”
Such a schedule made for long, long days, Vanderford said.
“He was in the back, I was in the front,” she said. “I was meet and greet and was producing. I was customer service and he was chef.”
Vanderford said they eventually began closing on Sundays because Muskogee’s not a barbecue town on Sundays.”
Over the years, several famous people came to Cowboys, including George Strait, Garth Brooks and Hillary Clinton.
Clothing business started at home
Vanderford’s venture into retail clothing began as a home shopping event called “Sip and Shop.”
She said she and her daughter held the events.
“And as it developed, I said ‘here’s the checkbook, here’s the inventory, and I’ll help you.'”
They opened Pinon Creek in 2016 in the Hoopes Hardware building.
She said retail had a slower pace than restaurant work.
“In the restaurant, everyone who walks in is there to buy,” she said. “In retail, they come in, look around. Some buy, some don’t.”
Vanderford said she found time to relax “not having that constant push.”
She said she also enjoyed going to retail markets in Dallas or Las Vegas.
“What you go to market to buy is a guess whether your customers will like it,” she said. “It started as jeans and T-shirts, now it’s developed more into things that people can wear out, work in.”
Working alone with no employees
Operating an event venue posed different challenges, Vanderford said.
“We had our eye on land at Country Club Road, 18 acres,” she said. “It changed hands two or three times. We bought it and talked about the venue business and thought we could have a wedding venue and have our house up there and live on the property.”
The 6,000 square-foot venue opened in 2019.
Vanderford said her daughter had become the owner of Pinon Creek by then.
“I went to the venue, I made appointments, met people every day,” Vanderford said. “I didn’t do their event, but I gave them everything they needed for it. We had the venue. We had the tables and chairs, tablecloths. It was another meet and greet situation.”
This time Vanderford worked alone, with no employees.
“David did all the mowing, and I made the appointments, booked the events, met them the morning they came and was there when they left at night,” she said.
HOW DID YOU COME TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE?
“My husband and I bought a little restaurant on York Street, called the Dairy Hut, in 1979. We converted it to barbecue, named it Cowboy’s Barbecue, and we were setting between there for 43 years. So we were in the restaurant business for 43 years. At that time we decided it was time to stop.”
WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT MUSKOGEE?
“It’s easy. People are very nice. They’ve been wonderful to David and I. We were considered outsiders, but they have included us. We’ve been involved with things. and two of my grandbabies are here and the other is 35 minutes away.”
WHAT WOULD MAKE MUSKOGEE A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE?
“Industry. And, if people who live in Muskogee didn’t talk bad about it. If you wake up and say ‘it’s going to be a great day,’ you can do things that will make it a great day. The high school has come leaps and bounds from what it was years ago. That’s been great. We need to capitalize on those things because when industries come, they’re going to look at education.”
WHAT PERSON IN MUSKOGEE DO YOU ADMIRE MOST?
“I don’t really have anyone in particular, more than anyone else. There are just so many people that have invested their hearts into Muskogee. I’m pretty impressed with most of them.”
WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE THING TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN MUSKOGEE?
“My grandbabies. I’ve had three grandbabies. My daughter got married here and my son got married here. We’ve got wonderful in-laws. This is family. We’ve got a huge surrounding of friends we classify as family. We acquired all of those through Cowboys. They’d come in to eat, we’d sit and talk with them, and they’d be like family.”
WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME?
“We’re planning some trips and vacation. I come down and help Chelsea now and then. We’re still doing stuff at the house. Pickleball until I blew my knee out.”
HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP MUSKOGEE IN 25 WORDS OR LESS?
“Lots of opportunities as far as bringing industry in. We’ve got the Port, we’ve got the industrial area. We just need to make things happen.”
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