A motorcycle sits atop Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon, one of the last holdouts of old-school outlaw bars in Texas. Located off Interstate 35 in Lorena, Papa Joe’s is infamous for a real-deal cowboy shootout in 2007, when outlaw country singer Billy Joe Shaver shot Billy Bryant Coker in the face with his .22. (He survived and Shaver was acquitted of charges of aggravated assault.) The moment is immortalized by Shaver’s song “Wacko from Waco.”
But don’t let that event define this local institution. The regulars are a mix of farmers, country folks, bikers, and truckers. And they embody the community-serving role Papa Joe’s and similar establishments across the state play
