Stuffed at Foster's Bighorn, Rio Vista

In my mind?  A bar filled with taxidermied animals should be the coolest place in California.  There should be wicker furniture everywhere, big mosquito netting, and huge exposed wooden posts holding the building up.  Or at least bikers cracking beer bottles over each other's heads, with Alabama playing on the jukebox and a bartender with the business end of a pool cue ready to pound some heads if things get out of hand.  

This is not so at Foster's Bighorn Sportsmen's Headquarters, in Rio Vista, California. Animals adorned all free wall space and much of the counter space in this bizarre international zoo.  The entire place took on a shabbiness found in most small town bars.  The chipped linoleum matched the green pleather covered chairs and the fake plants adorning the few remaining spots not housing dead animals.  The dining area was lit by florescent lighting found only in the finest Denny's Restaurants.  

I was hoping to order some exotic entrees but found myself staring at a menu pretty common for a bar/restaurant in a coastal town (well, Delta coast anyway).  My first thought was to at least order the Bison burger as there were two Bison hanging pretty close to our table, but a cooler head prevailed and I opted for the NY strip steak.  

I wonder if this is what Bill Foster envisioned as a housing for his "trophies" as he made his trips to Africa, Alaska, Greenland, India, Mexico, and Canada during the 20's, 30's and 40's.  Bill Foster settled in Rio Vista in 1931, after changing his name (from Frates to Foster) to elude assistant district attorney Earl Warren.  it seems Foster was a bootlegger in Alameda.  With those two "hobbies', big game hunting and bootlegging, it seems natural for him to create a bar featuring all of his trophies.  

Although not what I expected, Foster's Bighorn is an interesting exhibit of a by gone era.  As politically correct and evolved as I tend to believe I am, there still exists a part of me that imagines myself on a 1920's safari, enduring hardships but experiencing the excitement of the hunt...in a starched shirt and pith helmet of course.  Romanticized view of a barbaric practice, yes, I know.  But alluring none-the-less and ethically affordable as the opportunity will never present itself in this day and age.  In other words, overly romanticized fantasies are free.  

Our African adventure included Jamie, his wife Patty, and their two very sweet, well mannered boys, Marlin and Jackson.  Next time though, I'm foregoing the steak and potato dinner and making a beeline straight to the bar for an evening of serious martini drinking...it just seems right to have martinis while being stared down by the heads of exotic animals.  

Our safari Guide, Jaimie, protecting us from the wild animals...and the bizarre but friendly waitress.

Patty, enjoying thirty seconds of rest, before bolting up to rescue her two boys under the age of three. 

Big game hunter, rusty, bringing down a rack of ribs.

Another whim indulged!

 This is one of the only mounted elephant heads in existence today.  13 feet from the base to the tip of the trunk.  The tusks weigh 110 lbs. each and are mounted on the wall under the elephant.

This moose has an antler spread of 72 inches, one of the largest in the world, or so claimed Bill Foster.  I imagine a man with so many trophies might be prone to some exaggeration.  

Gentle readers, this is a stop worth making just to say you have done this!  A word of advise, for go the over priced under inspired dinner, go straight to the bar for a few martinis and enjoy a fantasy about big game hunting in the 1920's.  There are worse ways to spend an evening!