Nashville's Burger King Betty
by Bryce Martin

In the late 1980s I had a small office in Nashville on Music Row where I served as editor of the Nashville Inquirer. I saw Betty often keeping order at the Burger King lot down the street on 21st Avenue. I lived near there, too, and was around on weekends as well as during the week at my office. Next door and directly south of Burger King's parking lot was San Antonio Taco Co. Behind it and downstairs was Bobby's. It was a bar owned and operated by a hefty fellow who was said to have won a lottery in New York and this was what he had to show for it. It was Betty's job starting at about dark to when Burger King closed to keep anyone from parking, and leaving their vehicle unattended, who wasn't patronizing Burger King. After Betty would run someone off, a favorite thing was for them to open a car door, place an empty beer bottle upright on the asphalt and drive away. "Is Rolling Rock beer?" Betty asked. "I can't keep up with what these rich Vanderbilt kids drink."

There was a little shop area just to the north of Burger King and on the corner where a man did the same thing as Betty. He was looking out for the convenience store that sat back from the street. Young people came in, mostly Vanderbilt students who lived in nearby dorms, for beer and cigarettes. Those who lingered too long in their cars or around the entrance he asked to leave. "Get a real job," those asked to leave would shout to him.

Bobby's dream of making a killing selling New York style pizza to poor souls in Nashville who had been deprived of such heavenly bliss failed to catch on to any great degree and his Bobby's went out of business. Jerry Seabolt, former record producer ("California Sun" by the Rivieras, and others) and promotion man for Smash Records, took over with his own place he called Duffy's Tavern, and it went out of business in about a year's time. I had paid to see Pat McLaughlin perform at Duffy's on a Saturday night and I had seen Tara Moonshadow sing for tips during the week. I thought I had found my hangout. When Duffy's folded, San Antonio Taco bought that portion of the building (it was all connected) to use for storage.

Betty, meanwhile, kept on keeping non-Burger King customers off her lot.

I could have mentioned to Seabolt but never did that "California Sun," the top five hit of 1964 that he produced, was an exact copy right down to the arrangement of the song as done by Rodney Lay and The Blazers, a recording that went nowhere by the fivesome from my neck of the woods in Coffeyville, Kan.

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