Hugos Restaurant

WEST BROWNSVILLE — Hugo’s Restaurant, found off Route 40 in West Brownsville, Washington County, is more than a family-style restaurant. It’s a multiroom food emporium.
The establishment houses a large, family-friendly dining room, a banquet hall with seating for 300, a full-service bar, a room dedicated to an expansive breakfast buffet and, as of last week, a Sunday brunch buffet, too. Owners Ron White Sr. and his wife Verla White, along with their son and daughter-in-law Ron Jr. and Terri White, who manage the restaurant, have expanded Hugo’s four times since they bought it in 1994 — and they’re not done yet.
“I bought (the restaurant) so my wife would have something to do,” said Ron White Sr. “Now we’ve all got something to do.”
As Hugo’s building expands, so does its menu. The new Sunday brunch buffet is an all-you-can-eat extravaganza for just $8.95, and attracted three hundred people on its first day. Ron White Sr. explains the buffet’s success: “It’s word of mouth. We keep getting people back. For example, this Sunday we have a reservation for 90 people. It’s just going off the charts and everybody who’s eating it is coming back. I’d put it up against any breakfast buffet in the world.”
New projects in the pipeline include an “express lunch” with a salad bar, a Mexican night and a choose-your-own pasta night on Wednesdays, where patrons can build their ideal pasta dish from a variety of noodles, sauces, meat and seafood options.
As the menu swells with new items, older dishes stay put to keep customers happy, according to Ron White Sr. Even though only 20 customers order the liver and onions, for example, Hugo’s keeps liver and onions on the menu for the sake of those 20 people.
“I don’t care what happens, I want the customer taken care of,” he said. “When we say family restaurant, that’s what it is. When they come in here for the breakfast buffet, it’s not unusual to see people picking up tables and hooking them to other tables. It’s like a family. We don’t say, ‘Hey you can’t touch that table.’ If they’re happy, I’m happy, and that’s my philosophy.”
Other longtime favorites with assured spots on the Hugo’s menu include a monster chicken parmigiana dish that features chicken breasts the size of fists. Other options are meatloaf, fish sandwiches, gnocchi, ham steak, and many rotating specials.
Ron White Sr. said he bought Hugo’s with a plan for a restaurant where families could come and eat great food in hefty portions without busting their budgets.
Though he’s in the process of passing the day-to-day management along to his son and daughter-in-law, who he said are the perfect duo of food knowledge and people skills, Ron Sr. will always listen to his customers, pulling up a chair to ask them how he can make the place and their experience even better.
He added that the biggest reward of owning and operating Hugo’s has been watching it grow into what it is, and watching his grandchildren grow up within it.
“It’s been fun building it because we’ve really increased volume from what it was. Like I tell my kids and my employees, I don’t care what it costs — I’m going to make this the finest restaurant in the country,” he said.
“I’m not talking about fancy. I want this place to be a place to go to get value for your dollar, where kids can eat. It’s truly a family atmosphere, and that’s the way we want to keep it.”