There’s no doubt Baton Rouge is an epicenter for fried chicken.
Popeyes and Raising Cane’s were famously born in Louisiana, after all. But there’s one place that has been around the city longer than any of those joints: Chicken Shack.
|
|
|
We headed to the historic Capital City restaurant in 225‘s latest episode of our Between the Lines series.
Founded in 1937, the now-legendary chicken spot started as a sweets shop called Suburban Ice Cream Parlor. Until the restaurant’s owner and founder Thomas Delpit brought in his signature fried chicken.
His chicken was made differently than most other chicken places—and it still is. Chicken Shack begins with a wet batter, but instead of adding breadcrumbs or flakes like most chicken places, it throws the battered chicken directly into the oil.
The result: juicy chicken pieces that exit the fryer with a cakey, crispy texture.
Along with its chicken, Chicken Shack serves a variety of sides and other dishes: cornbread dressing, red beans, meatloaf, potato salad and more.
To keep customers informed of the rotating menu, Chicken Shack Manager Troy Carter came up with an idea of his own about 20 years ago. He started recording new daily outgoing voicemail messages that recount the day’s menu offerings.
“I started off just leaving the normal menu. One day I thought about it, ‘We have a thousand people call here every day.’ So I decided to start leaving encouragement at the end,” Carter says.
Now the voicemail includes the menu followed by a P.S. message that can range anywhere from blessings and prayers to words of encouragement for the community. Carter updates the message daily for Chicken Shack’s North Acadian Thruway location at 5 p.m. Hear it by dialing 225-383-0940.
For now, the owners of Chicken Shack plan to keep things exactly as they have been for decades. They see no need for a social media presence or adding another location. They’re happy with the role they play in the community.
|
|
|
“We do whatever we can do to help. Maybe after school they’ll say, ‘Hey I’ve got these kids and we need to feed them this afternoon.’ We just jump in, sometimes out of our own pocket,” Carter says.
And that’s perhaps, in part, why Chicken Shack’s methods have been attempted but never replicated.