For seventy years in Kerrville, the Famous Door served the African American community as a café, grocery store, and especially a dance hall. Henry Kelley established his café and grocery in the 1920s, when Jim Crow laws segregated and restricted all aspects of life. It became an important part of the community, hosting a 1938 Emancipation Day dance and a 1942 dance benefiting the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later the March of Dimes. Edward Bratcher, Sr., a prominent African American chef at the Bluebonnet Hotel, became manager and renamed it Bratcher's Place. In 1944, property owner A. L. Lewis sold Bratcher and his wife, Cordellia Mills Bratcher, the restaurant and adjacent property. As segregation excluded African Americans from music venues, entrepreneurs created the Chitlin' Circuit as an alternative for local performers and nationally known jazz, rock, and rhythm and blues musicians. The restaurant then began hosting musical acts and became the Famous Door Café, advertising itself as being "Famous for Friends, Food and Fun." As musical trends changed, it integrated its lineup, including groups from Kerrville and San Antonio often credited as early developers of Psychedelic Rock in the 1960s. Patrons later recalled it as Kerrville's first integrated business to welcome all customers before it closed in 1996, and music helped bridge cultural and generational gaps.