Probably the most-lamented fried chicken place I’ve found is Youngblood’s. I dimly remember seeing a Youngblood’s Restaurant at the Old Mill place during the State Fair of Texas about 1968, yet across the internet people swear it was the best chicken ever, and replications of its recipe can still be found.

Julius Harper “Pap” Youngblood was a cotton farmer in Speegleville, just west of Waco, when he bouht 500 baby chicks in 1930, raising them as a sideline to help make ends meet. (Ever hear recordings of Wolfman Jack hawking baby chicks over Mexican radio?) By 1942 “Pap” and his sons, Weldon and Ovid, had got the hang not only of raising chickens, but doing it “from the egg to the table”, processing and delivering feed for the poultry, and dressing the birds in their own processing plant. They opened their first restaurant in Waco in 1945 to advertise their business, and it was so successful they expanded to Dallas, opening their second restaurant in Oak Cliff in 1946 near Colorado and Zang. The above ad  announced the opening of that restaurant. By 1961 Youngblood’s was the fried chicken king of  Texas, with 60 chicken-raising farms around Waco, a chain of 14 restaurants, and about 500 people in their employ.

In 1967 Youngblood’s had more than 30 restaurants in Texas and  at least 6 franchise stores in the state. In 1968 they announced plans to expand with a nationwide franchising operation, but they were too late; the market was already flooded with other fried chicken franchises. That and a series of financial mishaps resulted in overwhelming debt, and all of Youngblood’s restaurants abruptly closed in 1969. Some of the restaurants were sold to Mickey Mantle’s Country Cooking, Inc. and the poultry processing operation was scaled back to about 12 people. By 1970 none of the Youngbloods had any association with their former operation.

Leslie’s originated in Waco, and that location seems to be famous for being the place where Billy Joe Shaver’s mom was a waitress. The first mention I find of Leslie’s in Dallas is 1939, when the Dallas Morning News mentioned it in a “Where to Go When You Eat” column. This postcard is from a few years later, when there were a whopping 9 locations around Texas. Leslie’s was at 2700 Ft. Worth Avenue, which would have put it almost directly across the street from Roth’s Cafe.

Leslie’s is listed in the Dallas phone book for 1951 but not for 1957. The site is now an empty lot.

Go here for a larger view of the building illustration from the postcard.

To see a larger view of this old sign now residing in the back lot of the Green Fiber plant in Waco go here and here.

F

We don’t mean to CROW but We Know Our Chicken

I found mention of Cliff Chicken Shack as early as August 1936, which means it may have pre-dated the more well-known Leslie’s Chicken Shack by several years. It may have been the first drive-in fried chicken joint in Oak Cliff. In 1942 the proprietor was listed as J.B. Cohen (or J.R. Cohen). By 1951, the Shack was out of business, and the building at 519 W. Davis (at the northeast corner at Llewellyn) had become Laden’s Food Market. The location was by turns a wholesale sandwich company, hardware store, carpet company, and an auto paint & body shop. The unlucky site is now home to Honduras Tire Shop.