Bulletproof cuisine

[Fresser]

Memories waft out of the squat, narrow building and 53rd & Kenwood, teasing the senses of those who used to eat in the lobby here. Or at least buy their food and run. For here, on the site of what is now a dry cleaners, there once stood Harold's Chicken Shack.

Harold's was a take-out joint, open as late as 2 A.M. to sate those with alcohol-fueled munchies or provide a nocturnal cholesterol fix. Though my own jaunts to Harold's tended to occur long before the midnight hour, the scene there was always the same: steamed-up windows, hungry customers crowding a tunnel-shaped waiting area, a weatherbeaten wooden price list perched below a security camera. And at the end of this gauntlet sat the bulletproof glass partition with a bank teller's slot and a carousel through which customers would pay for and retrieve their grease-soaked feast.

At Harold's, the food was cheap, but the atmosphere was priceless.

There's a Harold's Chicken Shack in every Chicago neighborhood--provided you live on the South Side. Somehow Harold's urban ambience never traveled to the North Side. Maybe the neon signage that featured an axe-wielding chef chasing a chicken never caught on north of Madison Street, the city's north-south dividing line. Sure, we'ere the Hog Butchers to the World, but the hog-butchers and the meat-eaters don't always share the same neighborhood. But hungry college students go where their wallets lead them.

Queueing up for 'cue

First stop on the Harold's experience is the teller window, where you bark your order through the money slot at the cashier sitting an inch-thick sheet of plexiglass away. Then you slide your cash through the convex slot, retrieve your number, and wait for your number to be bellowed through the crowd.

When your lucky numer was up, you ambled up to the carousel to see your steaming hot chicken perched atop french fries and awaiting its ritual drenching in sauce. "What's on your regular half?" the lady behind the glass would blurt out, and you would request salt, pepper, barbecue sauce and hot sauce, or some permutation of the above. Some of the old-timers asked for ketchup.

When your order was ready, the staff wrapped it in Harold's distinctive green-and-white bags which, conveniently, listed the locations of their other 40-odd stores across Chicago. One loyal customer and dorm-rat vowed to visit each one of the stores and proudly post the store's bag on his dormitory wall.

Most of the dorms were four or five blocks away from Harold's, but some mix of thermodynamics and hungry anticipation kept the tasty bird hot even during wintertime jaunts back to the dorms. Even if you didn't eat Harold's that night, you could tell if someone else on your floor had, as the smoky scent of Harold's sauce drifted through the halls.

Oh, and the feast itself: a fried half-chicken sat atop greasy french fries, liberally doused with sauce and then topped with Wonder Bread cost all of five bucks. White meat aficionados ordered either a white half (four pieces of white meat) or a white sandwich with a breast and wing. Sometimes I even ordered livers.

Since those halcyon days, Harold's has moved down 53rd Street to a larger location that actually offers seating, but the bulletproof glass remains. I've eaten at the new store a few times, but still I wander by the old site on Kenwood and peer through the window. Hangers and a pants-presser have replaced the deep-frying vats and plexiglass, but if you listen closely, you can still hear the echoes of "What's on your white half?" bounding about the narrow space.

If only those grease-stained walls could talk...

[Timh]

I seem to remember a Harolds during my brief stint in Chi-Town. Did yo uever have the fortune of experienceing the porkchop sandwich served at the market(can't recall the proper name, but where all of the wholesalers of produce were/are)? it was a trailer and the sanwiches were piled with sauteed onions, and I seem to remember a bone sticking out of the bun too. That town has/had some really atmospheric food establishments(also Sarkis's)

[Lilija]

I know I'm new-ish here, but I love Fresser stories. Your stories rock.

[racheld]

I know I'm new-ish here, but I love Fresser stories.  Your stories rock.

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I'm old and I love 'em too. The sense of silly is infectious.

[handmc]

I don't know about silly. It is just good writing.

I had some Harlod's after a Rugby game with the South Side Irish. O'Baby that was good. Even with a few broken teeth.

Ahhh Chicago's Calumet Park rugby pitch, where there are more shards of glass on the field, than blades of glass. Tough guys out there you is!

[Fresser]

I don't know about silly. It is just good writing.

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Thanks for defending my honor in cyberspace, handmc. Much of my writing often is silly, but in Chicago, fried chicken is serious business.

Harold Pierce opened the first Chicken Shack in the early 1950's in Chicago's South Side, an area where KFC and other national chains had few stores. Pierce slowly opened stores across the South Side, where consumers often remark, "Why have the Colonel (Sanders) when you can have the Fried Chicken King?"

Through cold, through dark, through dead of night--often in a drunken stupor--we would march down 53rd Street in search of that tacky beacon, the glowing Harold's signage:

[racheld]

No smirches intended, Fresser...any man who can create interest in scarfing whole oranges and anecdotes of body gases...that man can WRITE!!

The silly is just lagniappe.

[Sugarella]

More love for Fresser here. After reading another thread and spewing food all over my computer I decided you're definitely the funniest person on here.

Harold's sign is hilarious.... I wonder why the chef is running so fast with the cleaver when the chicken is just standing there motionless.....??

[Fresser]

More love for Fresser here. After reading another thread and spewing food all over my computer I decided you're definitely the funniest person on here.

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Thanks for the kind words, Sugarella. I'll send some paper towels and Windex over so you can wipe off your screen.

Now here's some news: Harold's has opened a store in Dallas, TX. I posted a note in the Texas forum--let's see how the urban ambiance migrates to the Lone Star State.

[Fresser]

Harold's just opened a new store in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. Wicker Park is similar in character to NYC's Greenwich Village, as well as being uncharted territory for Harold's. So I stopped in to scope out the store and suck up the ambience.

The signature bulletproof glass is nowhere to be found here, althought the rest of the restaurant is typically spare. Next time the hunger pangs strike, I'll head into the Wicker Park Harold's for a plate of livers and report back on my experience.

[sazji]

Harold's sign is hilarious.... I wonder why the chef is running so fast with the cleaver when the chicken is just standing there motionless.....?? 

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I was wondering more why the chicken was standing there motionless with a chef running at him with an axe? The I realized: He's trying to figure out how come he's still alive, but has somewhere along the line already been plucked....

[Fresser]

Harold's sign is hilarious.... I wonder why the chef is running so fast with the cleaver when the chicken is just standing there motionless.....?? 

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I was wondering more why the chicken was standing there motionless with a chef running at him with an axe? The I realized: He's trying to figure out how come he's still alive, but has somewhere along the line already been plucked....

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You must mean this charming signage:

Said bird must realize his impending doom. Danger, I think, was as much a part of the Harold's experience as barbecue sauce.

When I used to eat at Harold's, most of the Shacks were located in decidedly dicey neighborhoods--hence the bulletproof glass and teller's cages. One feat of drunken derring-doo involved crossing 60th Street (the southern border of the U of Chicago campus) and visiting the Harold's at 63rd and University. I knew students who would make the pilgrimage there at 2 A.M. when the 53rd Street Harold's had closed. They returned with many interesting stories to tell.