Often when interviewing for a new job, one is administered the “three beer test.” That is when a perspective candidate, after a day of interviewing, is taken out by a select group from the office and given at least three beers to see if their personality changes dramatically. Flunk the “three beer test” and kiss your job opportunity good-bye.

Upon arriving in Dallas in 1984, I was given the “three beer test” (it was more like a nine beer test) at Adair’s Saloon – a honky-tonk bar with ice cold cans of beer, great burgers topped with a red hot jalapeño peppers, and a juke box full of songs about lost pick-ups, lost dogs and lost souls.

My first encounter at the bar was with the now departed (may he rest in peace) R. L. Adair, the bar’s founder. Never having been east of Phoenix, I had to prove to the Texans surrounding me that I could be Texas-tough although only capable of wearing a six-gallon hat.

While passing the beer test with flying colors, one test I barely passed. On top of the gigantic hamburger that Adair’s is famous for was that large jalapeño pepper. Wanting to show that I fit in and was worthy of Texas citizenship, I wolfed down the pepper like it was a dill pickle. No one knew that my internal organs were burning but R. L. Adair.

He said “Son” in the best Texas drawl I still have ever heard, “this ‘ill put out the fire.” He gave me a carrot slice on a toothpick. Little did I know that it had been soaking in pepper juice. His belly laugh almost knocked the pistol out of his back belt.

R.L. may be gone  “his widow Lois still runs the joint – but Adair’s remains the same. Located in the most unlikely of places, Adair’s is in Deep Ellum which is home to the tattoo covered, body pierced crowd. By day it is more true to its cowboy roots. By night, when often live music is heard, it becomes more of a haven for the tragically hip youth of today.

Adair’s still has arguably the best burger in Dallas, and that does stir quite a debate in this town. But the memories of R.L. and the many characters that have been a part of Adair’s all these years lives on. Like the sting of your first jalapeño. D. M.