Southeast Kansas a fried chicken mecca, and it started 85 years ago on Chicken Dinner Road
One of the most famous roads in Kansas is a rural, two-lane stretch in southeast Kansas that’s affectionately known as “Chicken Dinner Road.”
It’s out in the middle of nowhere with nothing much around it but trees and outbuildings. But thousands of hungry people flock to it every year looking for two restaurants that sit just 300 feet apart and have been the center of a fried chicken debate for more than seven decades.
Chicken Annie’s is the original, founded in 1934 by Ann and Charlie Pichler. Its neighbor, Chicken Mary’s, may be an imitator, but it’s only nine years newer and has its own loyal fans who say its chicken is the crispiest, the juiciest, the best.
Their famous rivalry — which the owners admit today is really more of a friendly competition — has been the subject of countless national news stories and was even featured on a 2010 episode of the Travel Channel show “Food Wars.”
But the tasty thing about this area of the state is that the fried chicken is not all concentrated just on Chicken Dinner Road, where 85 years after the Pichlers started feeding nearby coal miners chicken dinners out of their house, diners still wait for more than an hour for a seat on a busy Sunday afternoon.
There are imitators everywhere, and you can find at least four other chicken restaurants with nearly identical menus all in Crawford County and almost all within a 10-minute drive of two originals. A couple of them have been doing steady business for nearly seven decades themselves and have managed to even pull customers away from Chicken Annie’s and Chicken Mary’s.
Last weekend, photographer Jaime Green and I traveled to chicken country to and take a self-guided fried chicken tour. We ordered chicken dinners at four of the area’s most popular fried chicken restaurants in less than 24 hours and we lived to tell about it. (Though we don’t recommend it.)
We were assisted by my parents, Dennis and Mary Anne Neil, who grew up in nearby Carthage and Joplin, Missouri, and who took me to Chicken Dinner Road many times as a child.
We learned that all four of the restaurants offer a nearly identical dining experience, their menus varying only slightly. And the mainstays of their menus are kind of unusual and unique to the region.
All them offer a complimentary basket of sliced white bread made at nearby Frontenac Bakery and served with packages of whipped butter.
All of them are known for their onion rings, which diners can smell frying as they approach the buildings and which many people order as an appetizer.
All of them offer a cold German potato salad and a German coleslaw, which both are made with vinegar rather than mayonnaise.
They all operate out of no-frills buildings in isolated areas and feature dining rooms that haven’t been redecorated in decades (and have the outdated wallpaper and wood paneling to prove it.) They all have second- and third-generation owners who are working to keep their grandparents’ legacies alive.
And they all have loyal fans who insist, fervently, that their favorite is the best and that they would never consider setting foot in any of the competitors’ places. Families have been strained, the owners report, when someone from a Chicken Annie’s family marries someone from a Chicken Mary’s family. Suddenly, no one knows where to eat.
Below you can learn all about the six chicken restaurants in Southeast Kansas, listed in the order of their founding dates.
Chicken Annie’s
Address: 1143 E 600th Ave. (aka Chicken Dinner Road), Yale, Kansas, chickenanniesoriginal.com
Hours: 4 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 4 to 9 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays. Closed Mondays.
Founded: 1934
Back in 1934, Ann Pichler’s husband, Charlie, was working in a coal mine in Pittsburg, like many of his neighbors. But when Charlie was seriously injured in a mining accident, his wife had to find a way to bring in money.
She started opening her kitchen to coal miners on their meal breaks, at first serving only sandwiches.
“It just evolved to where she started cooking in the evening, and it was chicken dinners,” said Janice Lipoglav, who today runs the restaurant with her husband — Ann’s grandson — Lonnie Lipoglav. “And it just grew and grew and grew.”
Ann’s chicken dinners included sides of the cold potato salad common in her native Austria. She would move the furniture out of her own living room to accommodate more people. On Saturday nights, wild dances would break out. Soon, Ann was running a full-fledged restaurant.
By 1963, Ann and Charlie had retired and turned the restaurant over to their children, Carl, Wilma and Louella. In 1972, the restaurant moved in to the massive building where it operates now, just a block and a half from Ann’s former house. It features a large waiting area with some aging wooden furniture and a couple of video games. The dining room is wood paneled and decorated with lots of kitschy chicken figurines, decorative dishes and various antiques.
Janice and Lonnie still make the chicken like Ann did, and theirs comes out of the fryer with a crispy, flavorful breading — achieved by using a special recipe that includes breadcrumbs and whole eggs — and a juicy interior.
“If you kind of grew up liking a heavy crusted chicken, then you’re probably going to like Mary’s,” Janice said. “If you grew up with a lighter, flakier crust, then you’re going to probably like ours.”
Lipoglav said Chicken Annie’s prides itself on making all the sides from scratch. People who order chicken dinners are offered a choice of two sides and they can get the vinegary salads or things like mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, fries, cottage cheese, applesauce or spaghetti. The menu also includes fried chicken livers, gizzards and hearts as well as fried shrimp and fried cod.
What Chicken Annie’s has that the others don’t: A very cool neon sign on the front of the building, which is a must-stop selfie spot for visitors to the area, and $13 logo T-shirts that you’ll covet once you see all the staff wearing them. (I got a blue one.)
Chicken Mary’s
Address: 1133 E. 600th Ave., Yale, Kansas. chicken-marys.com
Hours: 4-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 4-9 p.m. Saturdays, 11 a.m.- 8 p.m. Sundays.
Founded: 1943
In the early 1940s, Ann Pichler’s neighbor down the street, Mary Zerngast, found herself in the same situation Ann had faced several years earlier. Her husband, Joe, a German immigrant, suffered a heart attack and and could no longer work in the coal mine. Mary had to bring in money, so she did what Ann had done: She started serving fried chicken to hungry miners.
“You have a family, and in the 1940s, women don’t work. All they do is cook and house keep,” said Lana Brooks, who has managed Chicken Mary’s for its third-generation owners for nearly four decades. “So she opened up her kitchen to miners. Anytime day or night, you could knock on the door, and the burners would come on and she’d start frying chicken for you.”
The menu at Chicken Mary’s is nearly identical to Chicken Annie’s, and the chicken is also crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, though its batter relies more on flour and milk.
Today, Brooks said, the relationship between the neighboring chicken restaurants is friendly. But it wasn’t always like that, especially in the 1940s.
“Mary and Annie did not get along,” Brooks said. “It was not friendly. Now, we’re very friendly. We’re all in business, and we we all have our own clientele. We meet all the time and talk. There’s no hard feelings at all anymore.”
The two have plenty to bond over, including war stories about when the Travel Channel came to film “Food Wars” and both restaurants were subjected to insane filming schedules and major disruption. But both also reaped the benefits after, as people from all over the country traveled to try the neighboring chicken restaurants.
Chicken Mary’s is a bit more claustrophobic than Annie’s. The waiting room is so congested, a sign asks diners to send just one person inside to join the wait list and for everyone else in the party to wait outside.
Inside, there are three large dining rooms with tables set up pretty close together. And the cash register line is always long (at both restaurants) because credit card-friendly high speed internet has not yet arrived on Chicken Dinner Road.
What Chicken Mary’s has that the others don’t: A big covered outdoor waiting area and delicious French waffle cookies called belgi galettes for sale at the register. (Actually, Gebhardt’s has those, too.)
Gebhardt’s Chicken Dinners
Address: 124 N. 260th Street, Mulberry, Kansas.
Hours: 4-8 p.m. Mondays; 4-9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sundays
Founded: 1945
Ted Gebhardt had just been honorably discharged form the army and married his sweetheart, Maycle — who had once been chosen to be a Rockette, even though she didn’t accept the job. The young couple decided to settle on the Gebhardt family farm in tiny Mulberry, Kansas, and eventually, they bought a little honky tonk bar nearby.
They turned it into a chicken restaurant, and Maycle’s mother, Margaret Gebhardt, and aunt Tessie Goodman came up with a recipe for fried chicken.
Meg Gebhardt, the founders’ daughter, still runs the restaurant today. She started waiting tables when she was 8 years old.
The restaurant sits in a building in the middle of the country, and inside is one big dining room furnished with a mixture of retro yellow vinyl booths and standard restaurant tables and chairs. Photos of the restaurant’s founders, both in their younger days and when they were older, hang all over the restaurant. (Both Ted and Maycle have both since died.)
Meg Gebhardt said that she’s happy to have carried on her parents’ dream and to be a part of the fried-chicken tradition in southeast Kansas.
“We’re lucky that the four-state community supports all the chicken restaurants,” she said.
What Gebhart’s has that the others don’t: Meg Gebhardt is known for her chicken and noodles, which she serves only on Monday nights, drawing a big crowd each week.
Barto’s Idle Hour
Address: 201 Santa Fe. St., Frontenac, Kansas. bartosidlehour.com
Hours: The dining room is open from 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and from 4 to 9:30 p.m. Saturdays. The bar stays open until 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and until 11:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
Founded: 1951
Barto’s is among the newest and is certainly the most rocking of all the longtime chicken restaurants in the area. It was founded in the 1950s by Ray Barto as a bar where people could have a good time on weekend evenings, and he became known for the polka bands he hired to play.
In 1965, he opened a chicken restaurant next to his bar and offered a similar menu to the three already established places. Today, Barto’s is still run by Ray’s children in the same building, which features a quaint, quiet chicken restaurant on one side and a large, dimly lit bar with a dance floor on the other. People can order food on either side, and a big crowd always gathers on weekend nights to dance on the bar side to live polka bands.
Our visit was during Pittsburg State University’s homecoming weekend, and once the game was over, people in Pittsburg State gear crammed into the bar side of the business for chicken and conversation about the game.
German potato salad, German slaw and onion rings are on Barto’s menu, too, and its chicken has a bit of a crunchier crust.
“Every place has a different kind of breading,” said Carla Barto, who still helps manage the restaurant. “Ours is a little bit heavier and holds the heat.”
What Barto’s has that the others don’t: Dancing — every Friday and Saturday night starting at around 7:30 p.m., and the place always turns into a big party. And speaking of big parties, the bar side of Barto’s has long rows of tables where very large groups can all dine together.
Chicken Annie’s Girard
Address: 498 E. K-47 Highway, Girard, http://www.chickenanniesgirard.com
Hours: 4-8:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday
Founded: 1970
This version of Chicken Annie’s was started by Ann Pichler’s daughter, Louella, and her husband Louis. Its menu is largely the same as the other chicken restaurants in the area.
Pichler’s Chicken Annie’s
Address: 1271 S. 220th St., Pittsburg
Hours: 4 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 4 to 9 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays.
Founded: 1971
This restaurant actually was started by the grandson of Chicken Annie’s founder Ann Pichler and the granddaughter of Chicken Mary’s founder Mary Zerngast. The two married and opened their own place. Today, it’s not affiliated with the original Chicken Annie’s, but its menu will be familiar to those who have visited the original.
Chicken Annie’s menu
Chicken Mary’s menu
This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 5:01 AM.
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