Legendary San Antonio caterer Rosemary Kowalski died recently following a short illness. She was 100. Kowalski worked with her husband, Hank, to build a West Side barbecue restaurant into an 800-person catering business known as the RK group.
A public visitation and a rosary will take place on Wednesday, December 18th, at San Fernando Cathedral. A funeral Mass at the Tobin Center will begin at 2 p.m. on Thursday, December 19th and will be followed by a celebration of her life.
TPR's Jerry Clayton recently spoke with Cappy Lawton. He's a longtime friend of Rosemary and has been in the restaurant business for 50 years. He's the CEO of the Lawton family of restaurants.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity
Clayton: Can you tell me when you first met Rosemary?
Lawton: Feels like I've known her all my life, Jerry, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it was way back even before I was in the restaurant business. But her reputation preceded her. She was an amazing, amazing lady forever in our city.
Clayton: You told me that you and Rosemary took a trip to New York. Tell me about that.
Lawton: Whoa, that was a lot of fun. The Texas Biomed group asked us if my wife, Susie and I would host a group to go to New York City with some of the largest contributors to Texas Biomed. And I'll never forget, 21 people went and Rosemary and one of her good friends, Jean Marion, also went, and they were by far the oldest but youngest in the group. I think both of them were approaching 90, and we planned a very power-packed, fun five days in New York City.
Rosemary and Jean were always the first up in the morning and the last to go to bed at night. And one of the most fun events I remember is that we were staying across the street from a place called Bill's Piano Bar, and we went there probably around nine o'clock one night, and at 11:30 after Jean and Rosemary had both asked me to "get him to play this, get him to play that, Cap."
I think the $5 tips to the piano player were costing me about 300 bucks. I finally said, "I'm tired, guys, I gotta go to sleep." I didn't find out till later that they stayed there till the place closed at two, two o'clock in the morning. She was an unbelievably tireless, hardworking, fun-loving person.
Clayton: What do you think made Rosemary and the RK group so successful over the years?
Lawton: Well, pretty simple. She really was a fanatic for quality and making sure the guest was happy and satisfied. And she also was really the first person to get up in the morning, and the last to go to bed at night. I had friends over the years that worked with her and often told the tale that she would go home after a party at two o'clock in the morning and sleep in her office and wake up the next morning at seven o'clock and start all over again. She just loved what she did, and she was a tireless worker, and she cared a lot about the people that worked for her and that she worked for.
Disclaimer: The Lawton Family of Restaurants are financial supporters of Texas Public Radio.
