Bob Taylor steakhouse namesake gained following as a beef chef

Bob Taylor made headlines for just another exercise of his larger-than-life persona.

In the 1960s, Taylor ventured to the stockyards of Chicago hellbent on buying a grand champion steer for his restaurant, the Ranch House Supper Club in Las Vegas.

When it came time to pay for the prized animal, Taylor pushed a wheelbarrow of silver dollars up to the sellers, his widow Dotti Taylor said.

"He got publicity all over the world, but he didn't need it," she said. "People stood in line for his food."

Bob opened his steakhouse , now known as Bob Taylor's Original Ranch House & Supper Club , on 80 acres of untouched land in Centennial Hills in 1955 .

"An evening at the Ranch House meant you took a trip 'way out of town,' " his obituary read.

A blinking light alerted customers that the Ranch House Supper Club was open for business.

He didn't have a phone on property and didn't take reservations, Dotti said, and he relished a healthy bar business, thanks to patrons waiting for a table.

"He told friends, 'Come early or come late but never come at 8 (p.m.),' " she said.

He had a simple menu with lobster, shrimp , steaks and no desserts.

"If you wanted something sweet, you had an after-dinner drink," Dotti said.

Servers offered one salad dressing option.

"He went to the grave with the recipe," she said.

Bob cut and cooked his own steaks over a mesquite coal fire until 1980 , when he sold the restaurant. It wasn't until after the purchase that his name was added to the marquee .

His exit from the service industry ended a lifelong career.

Bob was born in Long Beach, Calif. , in 1922 . His father was in the produce business until the Great Depression , dashing his hopes of opening a market in Los Angeles, Dotti said.

"They kind of moved around when things got bad," she said.

The family moved to Kansas City, Mo. , and opened a restaurant.

"His mom got up early and rolled out fresh fruit pies with apples and berries and peaches," Dotti said. "They sold for 10 cents a slice, and they were gone by 1 p.m."

Bob learned his knack for restauranteering there and at family restaurants later in Bakersfield and Ventura, Calif. .

He was a World War II U.S. Army veteran who served as an airplane armored gunner and mechanic.

He bought property in Las Vegas for his business and trap and skeet fields and in Jackson Hole , Wyo. , for a vacation cabin.

His Las Vegas acreage was the background for two notable events.

When Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret were filmed shooting skeet in the movie "Viva Las Vegas," it was Bob who was actually breaking the clay targets just out of the frame in place of the actress, Dotti said.

In the 1970s, Bob added 20 trap and skeet fields to his property and hosted popular trapshooting tournaments, awarding dozens of automobiles and some of the largest cash purses. He hosted an NFL Pro-Am tournament in 1977, which featured a representative from each of the 26 National Football League football teams.

He sold the land little by little, and now none of the original 80 acres belongs to his estate , Dotti said.

"A wife got some in the divorce and it split off from there," Dotti said.

Bob married multiple times but didn't have children, she said.

Dotti met her husband in 1980, but said she remembered him from a visit to his Ranch House Supper Club decades before. After a tiff with her former beau, the Taylors became a couple, she said.

"I invited him for Thanksgiving and he never left," she said.

The couple indulged in busy retirement years.

They traveled Europe , the United States and Australia . Each year, they'd hitch their trailer to one of Bob 's trucks and salmon fish on their boat in a Canadian bay . The couple would feast on their catches -- most notably on the 42-pounder Bob once snatched -- throughout the year.

The couple went on a hunting expedition in South Africa, and the stuffed heads of a springbok , wildebeest and gemsbock hang in the family living room. Bob and Dotti , whom he called "Queen," used to cuddle on a fur-lined love seat carved into a tree stump from Redwood National Park .

Bob wore his signature cowboy hats and Western-style shirts with silver dollar tips most everywhere.

He was a member of the Elks Club for more than 55 years and was elected as a life member in 1986 .

His love of cooking never waned, and he even catered his own 85th birthday party .

"He loved to cook, but he always had me in the kitchen with him," Dotti said.

He'd cook the meat, and Dotti would dish the vegetables and salad, she said.

In his 80s, Bob developed emphysema , which Dotti suspects was influenced by years of standing over coal fires. He had a bout with prostate cancer and showed signs of dementia before his death, Dotti said.

"We didn't know these golden years would be like this," she said.

He died on March 14, 2010 , eight hours shy of his 88 th birthday, she said.

Dotti refers to his funeral as his "celebration of life."

She also calls the Summerlin house that they shared "a museum to his life." Pictures of historical moments in her husband's life line the walls and bookshelves. Dotti still drives his Dodge truck with a double-barrel rifle soldered in half and affixed to each door . Two beige recliners are still perched together in the living room.

"I'm holding onto everything of his," Dotti said.

A snapshot of Bob donning a chef's hat and fussing over a smoking grill hangs in the kitchen.

"He loved to entertain," she said. "He loved to make people happy."

Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter Maggie Lillis at mlillis@viewnews.com or 477-3839.