Sample book with community resources insert

Lytle Land & Cattle Company is known for great steaks
cooked over a mesquite-fired grill. Riley orders only the
best—aged corn-fed beef, which is cut into steaks at the
restaurant. Riley tells her supplier not to ship steaks until
they have aged three weeks—a demand she takes seriously.
When a customer commented on Facebook that his meal
was “fine,” but not “great,” that was not fine with Riley. She
tracked the origin of the complaint—the steak was tough.
Then she let the supplier know about it.
“The food is the thing,” Riley says. “The food’s gotta be great.”
It is the details that make all the food great at any of
Riley’s restaurants. From aged beef to butter, no margarine,
to homemade bread, to handcrafted poppers, those tasty
jalapenos wrapped in bacon, everything is authentic in a
Riley restaurant. The road has not been easy for Riley to rise
to the level of a Woman of Outstanding Achievement in
Abilene. After graduating from Eastland High School in
1965, she started college, married, had two children (Scott
Terrell and Amy Terrell Gomez), and eventually earned a
bachelor’s degree in nursing from TCU. She worked as an RN
in Eastland and then started her own consulting business for
nursing homes. In an Abilene Reporter-News feature called
“20 Over 50: Model Business Leaders,” Riley did not take all
the credit for her success. She noted that several people had
been influential in her life, none more so than her parents,
Millie and Frank Sayre, who “instilled in me an independent
spirit that is not afraid to try new things.”
The switch to the restaurant business came in 1980 and
Riley has never looked back. But she did bring to it a quality
from her days as a nurse, a gift for caregiving. “You have to
care about making people happy,” Riley said, to be successful
in the restaurant business. Lytle Land & Cattle Company
opened in 2000, followed by Sharon’s Barbeque on East
Highway 80 in 2005 and the newest location on Antilley
Road in 2017. From the beginning, Riley has been the driving
force, the “Energizer Bunny,” in the Lytle Land & Cattle
Company, from the interior design to the food on the table,
is a perfect example. The restaurant was built as a New
Mexico-style Mexican food restaurant and still retains hints
of that decor. But much of it came from Riley’s own imagination
and the help of Scott.
“There’s not a corner of this restaurant I haven’t been in,”
he said.
That includes the corner with the bar that was the result
of Scott’s hard work. Lumber for the bar came from a mill
close to Santa Fe. Logs were selected and then the boards
were cut to Scott’s specifications. The result is an authentic
Texas bar, with some New Mexico wood added in. Christmas
tree lights hung from the ceiling beams and neon beer signs
on the wall add a soft lighting. Straw cowboy hats, with the
names of former staff on the brims, also hang from the
beams, creating an unmistakable Texas atmosphere.
The atmosphere also has a family quality about it, because
it always has been family. Scott is on site daily. His oldest
daughter, Alex Terrell Russell, worked as general manager
for two years following her graduation from Texas Tech
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