What If I Told You There Were Two Herby-K’s?

Featured photo by Kyle Johnson Photography

As unlikely as it seems that two completely unrelated restaurants with nearly identical names and business models would operate for the better part of a century in neighboring Louisiana cities, that seems to have been the case with Herbie K’s (1941-1990) of Alexandria and Herby K’s (1936-present) of Shreveport.

The earliest public references to the career of Herbert K. Smith are used car listings in the Alexandria Town Talk from the late 1930s, which suggest that Smith spent some time employed as a car salesman. Then, on Dec. 2, 1941, an advertisement for the grand opening of Herbie K’s Oyster House shows up in the Town Talk. The ad boasts that Herbie K’s serves “the finest seasoned boiled shrimps in Louisiana” as well as “oysters on the half shell” from their location inside of Mike Mule’s Arena.

Mike Mule’s Arena, a 2,500-seat entertainment venue that hosted wrestling matches, amateur boxing, traveling circuses and more, was erected in 1920 and demolished in 1983 to make way for Interstate 49. Over the years, it was visited multiple times by boxing legend Jack Dempsey and played host to countless wrestling matches featuring names like The Hindu Brawler, Ed “The Strangler” Lewis, and The Bewhiskered Russian. According to a 1983 article in the Town Talk, it was Mike Mule who approached Herbert Smith with the opportunity to run a restaurant—albeit one located inside of a wrestling arena.

By mid-1942, Smith had apparently tasted success, and his operation moved down Lee Street, across the railroad tracks, to a free-standing restaurant. Herbie K’s Oyster House officially opened to the public on May 16, 1942.

There’s a great deal about the marketing of Herbie K’s Oyster House that is quirky, but nothing stands out quite like their slogan: “World’s Worst Service.” Those words were even included in the building’s striking neon signage, which also served as its logo in advertisements for 20 years.

Apparently, however bad the service was, it did not prevent Herbie K’s from becoming a runaway success. The 40s and 50s went exceptionally well for the restaurant, which began hosting touring Hammond organ players nightly and introduced Alexandria’s first live lobster tank. In 1955, the restaurant underwent a $75,000 expansion, adding a lounge and party room and bringing seating capacity up to approximately 300.

That year was also the year that Smith hired a waitress named Helen C. Ryder. Ryder, who held the title of “Bowling Queen of Alexandria,” is a fascinating character. She was so well-known in the community that news of her 1977 retirement made the front page of the Town Talk. In a story headlined “She’ll Give Her Feet a Rest,” Ryder told reporter Steve Swartz that she did have one regret on her final day of greeting customers:

“None of her obnoxious customers—the ones who have been impossible to please no matter how much she smiled or joked—showed up. They were invited, and Helen would have liked to have seen them. She has been waiting a long time to give them a ‘piece of her mind.’”

Ryder was more than a waitress, according to most reports. When Herbie K. Smith died in 1969, she was promoted to the position of evening hostess. In that role, she helped Hamp Smith, Herbie’s son, learn the ropes as manager.

Shortly after her retirement, the Mayor of Alexandria presented her with the keys to the city and declared an officially observed “Helen Ryder Day” in Alexandria.

“I feel like this place is a part of me,” Ryder told the Town Talk. “I feel like I ought to be drawing dividends.”

Robert Ryder, one of Helen’s sons, sent Stuffed & Busted the following message when he learned that we were researching this article:

“Other than Herbie K himself, Helen Ryder was probably the most popular person there. She knew every customer by name, and given that the Alexandria ‘elite’ were regulars, she knew them all. She was an amazing personality, and while I have no idea what kind of waitress she was, she was smart and had the best sense of humor I’ve ever seen. In 1977, it came as no surprise to anyone when she was given the keys to the city. My brother and I have both had what I guess you would call successful careers, but we still get asked all the time if we’re Helen Ryder’s boys. That’s still okay with us.”

Herbie K’s went bankrupt in 1984. The family reincorporated and bought the business back from the bank in 1989, but things didn’t work out. In September of 1990, the restaurant closed for good. Helen Ryder passed away on January 18, 2000.

If you look beyond the swirling, incomprehensible unlikelihood of neighboring Louisiana cities each being home to an oyster bar named Herby K’s—and those two restaurants having no relationship whatsoever—it is even more unlikely that both restaurants would be renowned for grumpy service, as Shreveport’s Herby-K’s was for many years during the reign of a server named “Killer.” The parallels between the two restaurants stack up like oyster shells sucked clean on a Tuesday night.

Not to get too purple, but maybe this unfathomable coincidence is simply another permutation of the magic of restaurants. Like children, they all have their own DNA, their own weird mix of owners and servers and patrons and notorious nights, friendships born on neighboring barstools, fading celebrity autographs signed by fading celebrities.

Just as, once in a while, some farmer clears away a placenta to find a two-headed calf, Louisiana birthed a two-headed oyster bar—both businesses dreamt up by a man with the given name Herbert and the nickname “Herby K,” both specializing in oysters, both staffed by beloved curmudgeons, both in mid-sized Louisiana river cities that aren’t New Orleans. Stranger things have happened, I guess.

Sometimes, it rains frogs.

This story was produced independently. If you’d like to support the creation of more stories like this, please consider buying the author a taco or sending him $5 via PayPal. If you’d like to advertise on this site, contact Chris at ChrisJay318@gmail.com.