For those of you who actually look at the pictures I take on my random travels, whom might have been curious to why there were pictures of me in front of a Wendy’s while I was in Houston, this was not a coincidence, nor was it a spontaneous moment of having to take goofy selfies right then and there.
That particular Wendy’s was the Wendy’s where former five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time WCW champion Booker T worked at for two years when he was a teenager. This is notable, because it was around this time when aside from working at Wendy’s, he also had a separate career going on simultaneously, robbing them.
Yes, the wrestling Hall of Famer, Booker T, was a convicted felon in his youth, and this information is ironically riotous to a guy with a twisted sense of humor like me.
When I mulled over the thought of going to Houston to go see their ballpark, the thought had crossed my mind about how it would be funny to go seek out the Wendy’s restaurants that Booker T had robbed in his youth. Eventually, I realized that I could probably find some actual locations in the public records of his case, that were included in the previously linked Smoking Gun article.
Sure enough, there were addresses present. And thanks to Google Maps and phone GPS, it’s easier than ever to get to them when I travel.
Pictured above, was 2928 Woodridge Drive, and after all these decades, it’s still a Wendy’s. Not just any Wendy’s, but one again, it was the Wendy’s that Booker T himself slung burgers at when he was young. To think, before he was doing axe kicks, missile dropkicks and Harlem Hangovers, he was flipping burgers, mopping floors, and dealing with customers in the drive-thru at this very Wendy’s restaurant.
The funny thing was that I thought I was fortunate enough to have gotten there so early that nobody would see me acting a fool out in front of it, taking posed selfies and shit, but after the first few pictures I took, I saw someone emerge from the inside and step outside. They pretended like they were inspecting the exterior of the building, but it was pretty obvious that they wanted to see what a suspicious figure like myself was doing, taking pictures of myself outside of a seemingly non-descript Wendy’s. And then they took a smoke break right behind me, but I was skilled enough to not include them in any shots.
Needless to say, once I realized that I was seen, I probably shouldn’t stick around that long, so I got my favorite pictures in front of the Booker T Wendy’s, and got the fuck out of there.
The next address that appeared in public records was 12150 Bissonet Street, which was almost 20 miles away from the Wendy’s where Booker T had worked at. According to the report, apparently, this was the location of one of the Wendy’s that Booker T and “The Wendy’s Bandits” actually robbed back in 1987.
Needless to say, it appears Booker T and the Wendy’s Bandits did a pretty efficient job at cleaning the place out, because 12150 Bissonet Street wasn’t even a Wendy’s before, but a Mexican restaurant known as “The Ranchito.”
The funny thing is that driving to this address, it became pretty clear why this was one of the targeted Wendy’s by Booker T and the Wendy’s Bandits. If the surrounding area were like it was when I was there, back in 1987, then the entire area is a vastly minority populous, leaning heavily towards Hispanic, and if there’s one unfortunate truth that has stood the test of time, it’s that minority-heavy areas simply get less police response and proximity as those that aren’t.
To cut to the chase, it was a Spanish Harlem, with miles and miles of giant Hispanic shopping plazas with 15 businesses listed on a sign meant to hold five, and there were small shacks of auto repair with signs written in Spanish with barbed wire-topped fences surrounding them. A Wendy’s here in 1987 was pretty much begging to get robbed, and unfortunately for them, Booker T and the Wendy’s Bandits obviously obliged.
As I stated in my Facebook feed, using wrestling terminology, the Wendy’s jobbed so badly to Booker T and the Wendy’s Bandits, that they simply never recovered. They eventually went down the route of getting repackaged, to resonate better with the surrounding audience, even if it meant becoming something as campy as a Mexican restaurant in the middle of a Mexican highway.
However, ironically, the Ranchito has apparently managed to get over with the locals, because as I arrived at the place, the parking lot was completely packed, and people were clearly dining there. I couldn’t park on-site to take my mocking selfies, and with as many people present on the property as there was, I’m not entirely sure I would have wanted to. So I was relegated to doing it from a safe distance, across the street.
In a way, 12150 Bissonet Street kind of owes it to Booker T for beating them so badly, that they had to be repackaged as something that actually found success.
But that concludes our brief tour of Houston, Texas, on the Booker T crime tour. Totally worth it, to be able to say that I was retracing the steps of a hall of famer, without the felonious actions.
