And I thought it was only a Chicago thang.
From the Detroit News:
What do a former NFL football player and an ex-Ford engineer know about making fried chicken? Plenty, according to Metro Detroit carry-out connoisseurs. Harold's Chicken Shack opened its doors in Ferndale three years ago, and has quickly become a local favorite."I think what customers like about our product is the uniqueness. All of our chicken is cooked to order and hand-seasoned, almost like what Mom used to make," said Dora Jenkins, a former Ford engineer who owns the business with her husband, Trezelle Jenkins.
The chicken's popularity recently earned it accolades in The Detroit News' Michigan's Best Reader's Poll, where it placed third for the Best Fried Chicken, and also took first place in a Detroit News Taste Panel blind sampling of carry-out chicken.
Harold Pierce founded Harold's Chicken Shack in Chicago during the 1950s. There are currently about 50 independently owned stores in Chicago. Trezelle Jenkins, a University of Michigan grad who played football for the Kansas City Chiefs and the New Orleans Saints, grew up loving the taste of the chicken in Chicago.
"I knew the owner of the local shop by my home. When I moved to Michigan I wanted to bring a taste of Chicago with me, so I began to inquire about opening a Harold's here," said Trezelle Jenkins.
[. . .] In addition to fried chicken, Harold's also sells fish, shrimp, liver and gizzards, along with side dishes such as okra, poppers, cheese sticks, coleslaw, macaroni salad and the ever-popular homemade desserts. The stores also provide catering for businesses, churches and schools.
All fast food, carry-out places should sell okra.
Mic Kaczmarczik has images of a sign or two, but I couldn't find one of the car.
Words cannot describe the car.
Nor could even Straight Dope make sense of the numbering scheme:
None of this helps with what, to my mind, is the most baffling corporate numbering scheme in American business today, namely Harold's Chicken Shack on the south side (mostly) of Chicago. Harold's Chicken Shacks are identified (mostly) by number. However, a Chicago correspondent observes, there are a half dozen unnumbered chicken shacks, all presumably vying for the honor of number 1, followed by numbers 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14B, 15, 18, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 29, 35, 50, 51, 53, 55, 58, 65, and 71. Noting the numerous lacunae in this scheme, one wonders: Is there an unusually high attrition rate in the chicken shack business (the south side is, after all, the baddest part of town), or did Harold just lose track?
The west side would dispute that "baddest part of town" line. Oh, they're tough, I'll give 'em that. But the lower east side of Chicago is the part that nobody goes into. Nobody.
Unless they're wearing scuba gear.
If you couldn't figure that one out, I ain't explaining the title of this for you, either.
I will say "Fuck Bernard Epton" one more time, because it always bears repeating.
Wasn't that a line from "The Night Chicago Died"?
so-and-so was a man, from the EAST SIDE of Chicago.
that's what happens when Australian bands(?) try to write about gangsters.
Daddy was a cop on the East side of Chicago, back in the USA, back in the bad old days.
In the heat of a summer night, in the land of the dollar bill, when the town of Chicago died and they talk about it still.
The song goes on about Al Capone, but I think it's a metaphor for Harold.
I think Aaron actually quoted Bad Bad Leroy Brown by Jim Croce.
All in all, I'd rather be in the country founded by convicts instead of the one founded by fucking Puritans. Or non-fucking Puritans, as the case may be.
Not sure about the song, sorry.
I hate okra.
Just saying.
I thought you was from the South, woman.
I am so from the South but I still don't like okra. My grandma did but I think it's nasty. Don't like greens either.
Don't like greens either? Ok, you from the South of what? South of Vancouver?
I was taking a cross country Greyhound trip about 10 years ago. We stopped in at the station in Chicago late at night. I was hungry and saw a sign that said "Chicken" and, I think, a "47". I got about three steps towards it when a security guard put his arm in front of me and said "You don't want to do that."
Ok, I want you to know I feel really guilty about laughing at that. . .
I've never had it, but I'd kill for a Harold's in Denver.
Sciatica's 9/8 link to American Brass Balls is worth the click and whatever spam it generates:
"Truly unique gifts for men and women. Brass balls jewelry, brass bumper balls truck accessories"
Truck accessories! Truck Accessories! Yeah! Wait, I don't own a truck and therefore somehow feel diminished and ashamed.
I clicked on the catalog heading "Cups," but given the site name it was a disappointment--only coffee mugs.
the south side of chicago being the baddest part of town is indeed a line from bad bad leroy brown. baddest man in the whole damn town. badder than-a ole king kong, meaner than a junkyard dog. etc, etc.
Speaking of King Kong, today (9/10) is Fay Wray's birthday. She's 94, I think.
Whatever happened to. . . no, I really shouldn't.
...that delicate, satin-draped fraaaaaaaame....
Go ahead, Aaron. Your turn.
I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, young lady.
I don't dream it, or be it.
How dare you call me a lady!
I'm interested in franchising my own harold's chicken if any one could pass the information on i would greatly apprecicated.
I am obsessed by this now. Where is Harold Pierce now?
And what is with the insults to Vancouver??? It's god's gift to the world in my opinion!
Harold Pierce passed on ~15 years ago. Having nourished generations of University of Chicago students, he's the only person the student newspaper ever ran an obituary for.
I was an E.R. Resident Doctor on the South Side and the West Side. I came from Oklahoma, and by the end of the first year, i was walking into the Harolds on 51st Street regularly. i was the only whitey in the joint, but it was worth the risk of violent death for the hot, crispy freshness of Harold's... grease dripping down my neck in chitown in the heat of the summer on my way to St Bernard's or Provident of Cook County. Back here in OK now, man i miss Harold's and that funny sign of a guy chasing a chicken with a hatchet. The South and the West Sides are both very violent, but the South edges out the West with its sheer volume of crime. I worked at Bethany ER on the West and we were always seeing a GSW there also.
[edited to mixed case by Stalin, who hates the shouty]
Does anyone know now to go about starting a Harolds. If, so I know a great location.