Cactus Cafe was Griff's Place

Venue goes back to the '30s and is still going, but its glory years were from 1983- 2009

Photo Jana Birchum Austin Chronicle

When the Texas Union reopened in 1977 after a two-year, $5.7 million renovation, it featured a new coffeehouse called the Cactus Café. But long before that, going back to 1933, the space was known as the Chuck Wagon. It was a campus restaurant that became more of a beatnik hangout in the early ‘60s- Janis Joplin sang there. During Vietnam it drew radical hippies and runaways and was the site of a Nov. 1969 riot, when police were called to remove longhaired townies. “Pigs Keep Out” was spray-painted on the wall to no avail. Days earlier, the Texas Union board voted to restrict the Chuck Wagon to students, staff and faculty. Charges against almost all the “Chuck Wagon 21” were later dropped. But student IDs continued to be required until 1973.

In its first two years, the Cactus was used mainly for plays, dance recitals, meetings and symposiums, like the Nov. 1978 “Is Rock Dead?” panel of famed music critic Lester Bangs, Sterling Morrison (ex-Velvet Underground), writer John Morthland and Alex Chilton, who played Raul’s the night before. The occasional music bookings in 1977 included jazz singer Natalie Zoe, folkies the Shucker Brothers and the Cabaret Revue of show tunes.

Perhaps 1979 is considered the birth year of the Cactus because that’s when student Griff Luneburg started working there, first as a bartender who taught himself how to run sound. Then he was in charge of the Thursday night open mic.

He started booking the Cactus full-time in 1983, which was good timing because Guadalupe St. folk club emmajoe’s just closed and the likes of Butch Hancock, Eliza Gilkyson, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett and Townes Van Zandt were looking for a new home. As an emmajoe’s regular- and Alamo Lounge before that- Luneburg knew very well who were the best singer-songwriters in town.

Griff circa 1985 photo Bill Leissner.

Griff was the Cactus Cafe, plain and simple. His attention to detail- he would configure the seating according to advance ticket sales so it always looked full, for instance- made it one of the best listening rooms in the country. The Cactus demanded that acts and audiences be at their best, which made for endless nights of enchantment.

Bruce Robison and Slaid Cleaves are just two of many popular Austin acts today who didn’t know for sure that they could do this singer-songwriter thing until they bowled ‘em over at the 120-capacity Cactus. Distance and volume are things that keep performers safe from revealing too much, but there’s no place to hide at the Cactus.

Built in 1933, the Chuck Wagon became the Cactus in 1977.

Think of anybody who’s written a song in the past 30 years that gave you goosebumps- they almost all played the Cactus. Among the best I saw were Kasey Chambers, Todd Snider, Maura O’Connell, Gillian Welch and Lyle Lovett.

But the one Cactus night I remember most fondly was when I was among 14 people to see John Hiatt in the Spring of ‘87. This was right before Bring the Family would revive his career. Across town that night, the Backroom was packed for Richard Thompson’s solo show. Glass Eye and Brent Grulke and all the other people who told you about music were always raving about Richard Thompson. I just wanted to hear “She Loves the Jerk” and head on over to the Backroom.

But Hiatt was so great I still remember what he was wearing (white dress shirt rolled up sleeves, with brown corduroy-looking pants). Also solo, he opened with “Memphis In the Meantime,” then followed with other brilliant songs we’d never heard before: “Thing Called Love,” “Tip of My Tongue,” “Stood Up,” all sung with incredible soul. Nobody yelled out requests for earlier MCA material, as we were all- “the Cactus 14”- blissfully along for the ride. At the end he went to the piano and played another brand new song, “Have a Little Faith In Me.” Think of how great that must’ve been and times five.

I lasted only three songs at the Backroom. I had no more room for music that night. I’m sure Cactus regulars can identify with that mental belt-loosening.

2009 photo of Griff Luneburg and Butch Hancock by Jay Janner

I broke the story online in 2009 that UT was closing the Cactus, having received a call from Steve Chaney, whose daughter worked there. The outrage from the music community was swift and intense, and the protest became a national story. The negative press for UT was unrelenting, and eventually the university caved, thanks to KUT stepping in to manage the Cactus and absorb any losses, which had been about $150,000 a year. But Griff’s job was sacrificed. The guy who made the Cactus something special was gone.

I’d been hearing things about inconsistencies in Luneburg’s last year, that his organizational skills resembled his permanent bedhead. Musicians’ cars getting towed from their special spot because paperwork wasn’t submitted- stuff like that. After 30 years at a job you can get a little sloppy. Griff loved to book music and run the show from behind the scenes- never saw him introduce a band from the stage even once- but was apparently less diligent with the stuff administrators really care about.

I don’t really know what happened behind the scenes, but it didn’t seem right for UT to do Griff that way. Put in a tough spot, his replacement Matt Munoz has done an admirable job keeping the Cactus relevant the past 10 years, but many of the “Griff acts” stopped playing there or, in more cases, got too big for the room.

Now that KUT has declined to renew the contract to run the Cactus, it looks like the room will revert to a student-booked format. It just never paid for itself so it’s back to ‘77, which means there’ll be no more reason to try to find parking on and off Guadalupe to hear a singer break your heart and inspire you at the same time.

“THE CHUCKWAGON INCIDENT” IS NOT A JAM BAND

21 protesters were arrested at 1969’s Chuck Wagon Incident, including Allen Pogue who took this photo. When it became a hippie hangout, the Texas Union board voted to restrict entry to the Chuck Wagon to students and faculty. A mini-riot broke out when non-students were physically removed.

This is the editorial my former employer published in Nov. 1969 in defense of UT restricting public access to the Chuck Wagon: