St. Philip’s student Paul Menefee helps prepare chorizo for 6,000 tacos during the Cowboy breakfast Jan. 25. Carlos Ferrand
St. Philip’s culinary arts students lend a hand with the chorizo at the 35th annual Cowboy Breakfast.
By Carlos Ferrand
cferrand@student.alamo.edu
Not since Black Friday have so many people arisen at 4 a.m. to get in line, but that is exactly what happened at the 35th annual Cowboy Breakfast Jan. 25.
Lines stretched across the parking lot of Cowboys Dancehall with folks waiting to sink their teeth into one of the many cowboy classic menu items.
Volunteers served the massive crowd with 2,500 servings of biscuits and gravy, 10,000 sausage and egg tacos, 4,000 taquitos, 10,000 tamales and 8,000 sweet rolls.
McDonalds was also on hand serving more than 15,000 cups of coffee. For those non-coffee drinkers, Oak Farms also threw in 5,000 pints of milk and orange juice.
Underneath the food tents, volunteers used flat top grills to cook the enormous breakfast. Students from St. Philip’s College’s culinary arts program staffed the chorizo grill. Culinary arts sophomore Paul Menefee shifted pounds of chorizo back and forth across the hot grill to keep it from burning.
When that batch of chorizo was finished, Menefee added more because on this morning, he and his fellows would serve 6,000 chorizo and egg tacos.
The crowd may have come for the breakfast, but they stuck around for the entertainment.
People gathered around a stage set-up in the center of the parking lot clapping and singing along with Mario Flores and the Soda Creek Band. During the performance, folks could even try their luck on a mechanical bull ride.
The Cowboy Breakfast marks the beginning of the 64th San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. It also marks a tradition that is now 35 years old.
Odilia O’Neal has been coming to the Cowboy Breakfast for 25 years. She simply wouldn’t miss it for the world, she said.
For information on the rodeo, call 210-225-5851 or email info@sarodeo.com.
