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Picture: Peggy Albair, owner of Peggy's On The Bayou, in Bridge City, is coming up with new ideas for her business while waiting for the Cow Bayou Bridge on East Roundbunch Road to be completed.

RECORD PHOTO by David Ball

David Ball

For The Record

You know the old saying — when one door closes another one opens.

The same can be applied to roads, or bridges. One Bridge City restaurateur is trying to make another road to prosperity and bridge the gap.

Peggy Albair, owner of Peggy's On The Bayou, is waiting for work to be completed repairing the swing bridge on Cow Bayou on East Roundbunch Road that started last year and will complete at the end of this year. But instead of waiting for the dust to clear, she's being proactive and doing something about the situation.

The full service portion of the restaurant has been closed since Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey hit in August 2017. They've recently opened in April in a revamped format. The restaurant opened in 2009 while the seafood market there opened in 1992.

Instead of a sit-down restaurant, Peggy's will do takeouts and deliveries instead. They'll also moving in an entirely different direction, one that probably hasn't been tried in Orange County — they'll have a game room with video games and traditional games for kids and adults at their location, 2682 East Roundbunch Road in Bridge City.

"We'll have things like '80s arcade games and card games too," Albair said. "We'll have the back room for game parties. People can either bring their own food or we'll supply it (at a cost).

"I'm thinking of renting the room for $200 for three hours and a $100 cleanup fee if they want us to do it or they can clean it themselves. We're hoping this game room will help us."

There will be a sitting area in the lobby, one outside sitting area and folding tables and chairs plus bean bags in the game room. There will be four television sets in the game room for either the video games or for watching sports. The restaurant is BYOB too.

A membership fee may be charged or some kind of rate for time played on a game.

The game room will have a snack bar with sno cones, popcorn, candy and cold drinks.

Peggy's On The Bayou will also host a grand opening at a later date with a video game competition. There's one catch, however. The champion has to play Albair in some type of Mario game. The entry fee for the competition will be $30 with half of that fee going to a charity of the champion's choice. Prizes will be offered and T-shirts for the competition may possibly be made too.

No gambling is allowed with the exception of maybe some penny ante poker. She added that there will be rules and regulations for the game room.

"This is a family atmosphere," she said. "For children under 12, I prefer the parents be with the child. I have no toleration for drugs, cursing and fighting. It won't be allowed. Violators won't be allowed to come back. I'm going to be a men mama. This place is for children and for adults who want to feel like a child again."

For the restaurant side of business, they have condensed their menu and they lowered their prices on some items such as burgers. There are daily specials starting at $5.99. Customers may either call an order at 409-886-1115, or order for delivery through Guber's Southwest.

Back to the topic of the bridge, Albair said construction has affected her business "quite a bit" in a negative way.

She said work crews shut down the bridge in March 2017 and they didn't tell her ahead of time.

"Our sales dropped," she said. "Some people didn't want to have to come around (from Bridge City to FM 1008, down East Roundbunch Road) or they didn't know how to come around. Some people have a limited time for lunch to come out of the way. We knew it would be coming, but we didn't know when. If we did, I could had put signs out and posted on Facebook.

"Summertime is our best time and our sales dropped. I went to see if I could be reimbursed (by Orange County), but they can't do that."

Sarah Dupre, public information officer for the Texas Department of Transportation, said the$11.4 million bridge project is 60 percent completed. They started work last July to upgrade the bridge and estimate completing it by the end of the year.

The original completion date was for August 2018, but it was pushed back a couple of months due to Harvey.