Bad Water Bill

When I lived in Roanoke, Virginia, I had a friend and co-worker named Steve. One day our boss sent us on assignments to a company in Maryland. We performed our assigned tasks and after a few days we left one morning and headed back to Roanoke. Steve drove while I rode shotgun and watched the beautiful Shenandoah countryside roll by on I-81. Around noon I saw a faded billboard advertising “Bad Water Bill’s Barbecue Barn” and realized I was getting hungry. According to the billboard, Bad Water Bill’s was at the next exit - the Strasburg exit. We were still 160 miles from Roanoke and that’s a long way to travel on an empty stomach. I mentioned the billboard to Steve. “Let’s stop and get some barbeque.” Steve agreed and we took the Strasburg exit.

We traveled only a short distance from the Interstate before we came upon Bad Water Bill’s. The place looked closed. The front windows were boarded up. There were two doors. We tried the first door and found it locked. We tried the second door. It opened.

We went inside and it was like walking into a motion picture auditorium while the movie is playing. Which is to say: dark. As my eyes adjusted to the change from daylight to dim light, I saw that the only light in the room was coming from florescent fixtures hanging above pool tables. The patrons, all men, were either sitting at a long bar near the back wall or standing around pool tables.

It’s hard to describe the men inside Bad Water Bill’s. Have you ever seen the animated character called Yosemite Sam? I’m not saying the men looked exactly like Yosemite Sam. I’m only saying that that’s the impression I got. Yosemite Sam has a longer beard than most of the customers I saw. Plus he flaunts a couple of six-shooters. The men in Bad Water Bill’s were mostly armed with pool cues. They were bikers. Bad Water Bill’s was a biker bar.

Steve and I walked up to the bar and Steve said to the bartender, “You feedin’ people today?”

The bartender thumbed over his shoulder, motioning toward a closed door behind the bar. “Through there,” he said.

Steve and I walked around the bar and through the door. On the other side of the door was a most amazing sight. There was a Mexican restaurant, brightly lit by large windows on three walls. We learned that a Mexican family ran the restaurant and every week genuine Mexican food ingredients were flown up from Mexico City. So Steve and I sat down and had authentic Mexican meals. This was not Tex-Mex food, nor was it the tame food often served to Americans in so-called Mexican restaurants.

I enjoyed the meal but I never returned. In October, 2003, an arsonist burned down Bad Water Bill’s. Supposedly, he did it to earn respect from a motorcycle gang. What he got was five years in lockup. Bad Water Bill’s owner Mary Fisher said the fire destroyed her life. She had owned the bar for three years, and had worked there for many years before. Maybe she had fire insurance. Maybe not.

If you find yourself driving past Strasburg on I-81, consider taking the Route 11 exit headed east. Drive for a mile. If you see Bad Water Bill’s—it was on the left side of the highway—stop and eat. And leave a comment here. Let us know it’s back.