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Seated in his regular booth, George Argyres (left) owner of the Town House Lounge & Restaurant talks with his youngest son, Pete. After 49 years, the Town House closes May 5.

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There is a cow on Route 66 that could soon be put out to pasture.

It sits perched atop a steakhouse, as it has for the past 34 years, sending the simplest of messages.

"Beef," George K. Argyres, owner of the Town House Lounge & Restaurant at 3911 Central Ave. N.E., says in his thick, Greek accent.

If it were a milk cow, it could sit in front of a dairy and serve a similar function.

But this is a steakhouse, one of the city's first, Argyres says. So this one represents beef.

And it's moseying along with its owner next month, when Argyres shuts down his restaurant, making the Town House and its not-so-symbolic cow the latest in the long line of Route 66 operations to become part of the Mother Road's past.

"That's the way it goes," Argyres says.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Argyres is sitting on the far edge of one his restaurant's red vinyl booths.

The interior of the restaurant is dark, yet comforting. It has wood-paneled walls and display cases filled with things like vintage model cars. It also looks dated and worn, like a comfortable pair of shoes patched with duct tape, much like the tape patching a hole in Argyres' booth.

Some faithful customers have come by. They have heard the news. They think it's a shame.

"We've been going here for 45 years," one man tells Argyres, sympathetically.

"47," his wife says, correcting him.

The restaurant's time at the location is coming to an end, because Argyres said, he was unable to come to an agreement over his lease.

It will end Argyres' nearly 50-year association with that patch of Central, tucked between Route 66 landmarks like the De Anza Motor Lodge and the Aztec Motel.

He was born in Kalamáta, the coastal city in southern Greece known for its olive trees, to a farming family who grew potatoes, tomatoes, "all kinds of things."

In 1950 he came to Albuquerque, where his sister lived, and enrolled at the University of New Mexico to study economics.

He never finished, instead entering the U.S. Army for a two-year stint as a means of staying in the country.

When he came back, in 1956, he took a job as a bartender at the Town House, when Central Avenue was a decidedly different road.

"In the '50s and '60s and '70s, before the freeways opened, Central Avenue was the busiest street in Albuquerque day and night," says Argyres, now 77.

He only stayed at the Town House for three months. He and his brother bought the now-demolished Blue Spruce Bar, which he ran from 1956-61.

But he was drawn back to the Town House, for business reasons. "Busy," he says of his attraction to the restaurant. "Good revenue. Good name."

He serves steaks and seafood. The house speciality is shish kebab. They make their own Greek dressing with imported feta cheese. And if you're of age, you might have tried Argyres' "foot warmer," a cognaclike after-dinner drink made in-house and given for free as a thank you to his customers.

The cow, however, came later.

After the fighter jet.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

"It used to be an airplane on top," explains Dino Argyres, one of George's four sons, three of whom work at the Town House.

It was a P-51 Mustang, to be precise, complete with prop and engine, provided by faithful patrons from Kirtland Air Force Base.

The Town House was popular among the airmen who found it a convenient drive down Carlisle Boulevard from the base, Argyres said.

The jet lasted atop the building until one night in 1966, when sometime between 2 and 7 a.m. - after the restaurant closed - someone stole the plane's engine and prop.

"A bunch of guys got together - probably drunk - picked it up and left," Argyres said. "I figured somebody would come back and say, `Hey, I took the airplane.' "

That person never came along.

Meanwhile in 1965, Argyres bought a building on east Central Avenue that housed a barbecue restaurant. Outside, stood the now familiar cow.

"The place burned down, so we decided to bring it (the cow) down here," he said.

So it was, in 1973, the cow that would come to represent the beef sold within the Town House found its place on the roof.

There's no telling what will happen to it next.

Argyres says there's still a chance the restaurant - a family operation that includes his wife, Katherine - will be resurrected, along with the cow.

He knows the location, calling it only "somewhere between here and the mountains." But he's just not sure yet. He's discouraged by modern-day regulations on people who sell alcohol.

What he does know is that, by May 5, the Town House as it's known today will cease to exist.

And the future of the cow is uncertain.

"It's going to be a lot of hard thinking."