Eat, Drink, and Burn Bridges

“Tim Love is a chef, and he wants to prepare food that will be different from your normal golf tournament fare,” Shaw said. “He likes to blend flavors and textures and wants it to be something memorable. The food was good, and I hope they have him back next year.”

Olenjack figures Love’s high profile created more demand for concession food, which is a good problem to have.

“With his name attached to it, more people probably tried it than they had in previous years,” he said.

A Love employee who was hired to work at a sponsor tent (and who asked for anonymity) said most of the problems with long lines fall back on Love. Taking a more gourmet approach to food preparation, preparing much of it at a central kitchen, and delivering it to vendors didn’t work.

“I don’t think he knew how hard it was going to be to get food to and from these places,” the employee said. “He doesn’t have the staff. He tried too hard when he should have kept the food basic in the beginning. He could have jazzed it up later. He was inexperienced for that big of a venue.”

Tournament president Tothe wouldn’t say whether the chef will get a second chance.

“There is no denying we jumped in with both feet with Tim, and he was up for the challenge,” Tothe said. “Change is difficult. Change is good. I applaud Tim for digging in his heels and trying to make it work. He had some challenges operationally, but he never gave up.”

Never giving up is an apt description for Love. He rose from a small-time cook to celebrity chef in a relatively short time through hard work and relentless self-marketing. After growing up in Denton, Love attended the University of Tennessee, then moved to Fort Worth to work as a chef at Mira Vista Golf Club, and later at Reata in the 1990s.

Love’s local fame spiked in 2000 after he left Reata and, along with wife Emilie, opened Lonesome Dove Western Bistro in the Stockyards. The upscale restaurant was –– and still is –– unique for a historic district that mostly dishes out straightforward barbecue, steaks, and Mexican food. Love’s menu stood out with its offering of game as exotic fine dining. Local businessmen Steve Murrin, Joe Dulle, and Jim Lane were soon recruiting Love to take over the nearby White Elephant Saloon and adjoining beer garden. They heralded Love, who was still in his 20s at the time, as a savior who would breathe new life and fresh ideas into the area while preserving its historic integrity.

Love’s charms proved to be unpredictable. He revels, grins, and cracks wise in the presence of entertainers and characters such as Murrin and Dallas Mavericks General Manager Donnie Nelson. But when he dons his boss hat, he can be tough and abrupt with employees, customers, and outsiders alike.

He alienated himself from many Stockyards patrons after firing about 20 of White Elephant’s employees, including a popular bartender who called him an asshole during his introductory staff meeting (“Lonesome Love,” Feb. 27, 2003). He pissed off older regulars by vowing to attract younger crowds and musicians. And he butted heads with nearby business owners, who accused him of hogging curb space with his valet parking. Love complained to the city about an adjacent business owner’s work truck being visible  from Lonesome Dove’s outside deck. The legally parked truck belonged to longtime Northside property owner Jack Walters, who’d spent more than 50 years in the Stockyards. Walters told the Weekly he would have moved the truck if Love had been neighborly and asked him instead of trying to “throw his weight around.”

Back then, Love told the Weekly he had no regrets.

“I hardly ever regret anything I do because I feel that I made the decision for a reason,” he said.

That sentiment doesn’t always translate well to real life. Love seldom responds to interview requests from the Weekly. He’s received positive press in these pages over the years, and he’s taken some hits. In 2012, our Last Call columnist criticized Love for ordering 10 shots of Patron tequila at The Moon bar without tipping the bartender. (As it turned out, a member of Love’s party had left a tip on the table.)

“Foodies seem to love him, and service industry people seem to hate him,” the columnist wrote.

The following month, in another Weekly column, Chow, Baby penned an overall positive review of the Woodshed, Love’s barbecue joint on the Trinity River, describing Love as polarizing and the Woodshed as controversial. The piece ended with a backhanded compliment.

“As Cowtown’s self-appointed culinary ambassador he’s less than charming, but his restaurants make up for it,” Chow, Baby wrote. “His all-creatures-great-and-small style of cuisine may seem kitschy by now, but let’s not forget that he was among those doing it first — and is still doing it right.”

Love has pretty much shunned the paper ever since. He still isn’t winning many popularity contests, but his Stockyards ventures and other restaurants remain strong. He’s aligned with several charities. He helped beautify the once woeful looking Marine Creek that runs behind his Stockyards properties. He’s done exactly what Murrin and Co. had hoped he’d do –– keep the action hopping.

Love did not make himself available for an interview for this article. His assistant asked for a list of questions, but Love did not respond to them. Instead he provided a general statement saying he was excited about his new TV show, appreciative of customers at his restaurants, and fortunate to be able to spend time with his family in Fort Worth.

He ignored questions about his TCU and Colonial gigs, although he ended the statement by wishing luck to Bonnell and Sodexo, signing off with “Go Frogs!”

Back in 2003, he and Emilie relinquished secure, salaried jobs to strike out on their own and worked almost around the clock to establish themselves. Love predicted that within eight years he’d have a management team running the restaurant and saloon, and he’d be spending far more time with his family. The Loves had a 15-month-old son at the time, and Emilie was pregnant with twins.

Many things have happened since then, but easing back on work doesn’t appear to be one of them. Love now owns three additional restaurants –– the Woodshed Smokehouse near TCU, the Love Shack in the Stockyards, and Queenie’s Steakhouse in Denton. He shills nationally for Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. He markets a line of cooking products. He continuously pops up on cooking shows, gets featured in national publications, and is the “official chef” at the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Then again, he’s flopped a few times, not even counting his recent failures at TCU and Colonial. After his successful opening of the Love Shack in the Stockyards, he opened similar restaurants on 7th Street, Bluebonnet Circle, and in Denton but closed them all after short stints.

He opened a second Lonesome Dove in Manhattan in 2006 but closed it six months later amid poor reviews and scorn from New Yorkers. At about the same time, he introduced his tapas bar Duce to Westsiders on Camp Bowie Boulevard. The concept never caught on, and he closed it in 2008 after trying to change it to a steakhouse. He signed on in 2012 to help  reinvigorate the venerable Oui Lounge on Bluebonnet Circle. Instead, he robbed the beloved dive bar of its mojo, including by ripping out cozy interior walls and banning smoking. Oui Lounge was gone by 2013.

Love even drew criticism for one of his successful ventures. Some locals went ballistic after learning that the controversial Trinity River Vision Authority (characterized by many as a taxpayer boondoggle) had given Love a 10-year lease and spent about $1 million to build the Woodshed building without any open bidding. A handful of taxpayers attended opening night in 2012 to protest the sweetheart deal.

Love, at least publicly, shrugs off his failures and his critics. He storms ahead, seemingly certain of his path as he moves from adventure to misadventure.

Olenjack dubbed Love’s Colonial and TCU situations “aberrations” and said they will have little impact on his friend’s future in food, TV, catering, and whatever else he dreams up.

“You’ve got to always be thinking outside the box to do what he does. It takes a lot of time. It’s nonstop, seven days a week. I admire him for that,” Olenjack said.

Another chef who requsted anonymity said Love’s ambition might be his downfall  — that trying for fame while spreading yourself so thin that you can’t oversee your properties can ruin a brand.

“Something is going to suffer,” the chef said. “There’s not enough time in the day. When are you in the restaurants? I don’t care if you hire the greatest staff in the world, you’ve got to be involved in your creations. Tim is the creative one and the idea man with his concepts, and you have to step in there and make sure it’s being done right and to your standards.”

Louis Lambert is entrenched in the Austin food scene these days, but he still owns Dutch’s Hamburgers near TCU. He and Love have been acquainted for years. Lambert agrees that chefs who spread themselves too thin run into problems, particularly when trying to juggle restaurants and large catering jobs.

“I’ve seen other restaurant guys get out and try to do catering, and it’s a different animal, a different mindset,” he said. “A lot of folks get in trouble doing that.”

Lambert said he’s never experienced any assholery from Love, but he’s heard from others who have. Love is finding his way, dealing with successes, facing failures, and still evolving.

“Tim is a talented, nice guy, and he’s good for the city of Fort Worth, and I don’t want to see him crash and burn because his ego got in the way,” Lambert said. “The guys who make it and last in this business, as far as chefs with any kind of name, are the ones who are humble and in it for the cooking and the art of it, not for the celebrity. A lot of them start believing their own press. Most of that press is bought and paid for.”

He agrees with Olenjack that Love will prevail despite the TCU and Colonial setbacks.

“It’ll be a little hurdle that he’ll clear,” he said.