Bird on a Wire

I'll admit it — I've been in a funky chicken funk ever since Mike Donegan, the owner of Stroud's Restaurant & Bar, decided to let Kansas City have its way and peck up the property at 85th Street and Troost in order to replace the aging Troost Avenue Bridge and widen the street. Donegan accepted the city's financial settlement and says he'll move the historic restaurant — even picking up the whole building, by some accounts — to another location. And that's what frightens some people. Move Stroud's? Where? A friend of mine has had a recurring nightmare ever since Donegan announced that the historic roadhouse would close on December 31.

"In my dream, I'm driving to the new Stroud's," my friend says, "and I'm driving and driving and driving, and I suddenly realize that I'm in Olathe. That's when I wake up screaming. I don't want to drive to fucking Olathe."

As of this writing, Mike Donegan hasn't announced wherehe might move his beloved restaurant, and he's keeping his cards close to his chest, so for all I know, it could be in Olathe. Or the Crossroads. Or smack in the middle of the Country Club Plaza — no one has leased the ill-fated Canyon Café space, right?

There is a historical precedent, I suppose, for Stroud's to consider a move to the suburbs. When Helen Stroud opened her beer-and-barbecue shack in 1933 (the year that Prohibition was repealed), she picked a location that wasn't just suburban. It was literally and metaphorically beyond the city limits, which ended a bit north of 85th Street. The other side of 85th was considered "out in the county," and with no city laws to crack down on the hooch joints, it became prime real estate for some raucous roadhouse action.

Back in the day, party animals could eat and drink cheaply at joints like Stroud's — which was listed as Stroud's Barbecue in local phone books until the 1960s — or the Cottage Inn, the Dixie BBQ and the Silver Moon Tavern and Barbecue, now the site of B.B.'s Lawnside Barbecue.

Stroud's didn't establish a reputation for its pan-fried chicken until the meat rationing of World War II made the bird a cheaper culinary choice than beef. But economy wasn't the only reason. By the early 1950s, fried chicken was one of the most popular dishes any restaurant could offer — even Italianrestaurants. When the late Jasper Mirabile opened his namesake dining room at 75th Street and Wornall Road in 1954 (when this neighborhood was still practically the end of the streetcar line), he served spaghetti, pizza and fried chicken.

Helen Stroud sold to Mike Donegan in 1972; by the end of that decade, when Stroud's was serving a four-piece chicken dinner (including soup or salad, potatoes, gravy and cinnamon rolls) for $4.25, it had already outlasted all its best-known rivals, including The Green Parrot and the legendary Wishbone. That's one of the reasons Stroud's is considered sacred turf by many of its fans: It's among the last relics of Kansas City's culinary past.

Knowing that December 31 is the last call for this famous restaurant, I had to make at least one more pilgrimage to the shrine of pan-fried chicken and pay homage to a place that holds more historical significance (for me, anyway) than any number of "official" Kansas City Historic Register sites (the Acme Cleansing Company or the Kansas City Young Matrons Clubhouse, for example). The building isn't much to look at, inside or out, but for fried-fowl fanatics, it's chicken mecca.

That would explain why even the whiniest patron waits patiently for a table here. On the early Sunday evening that I arrived with Lou Jane, Marilyn, Bob and Ned, we walked in the door right after the Chiefs game ended. Within seconds, the "waiting area" adjoining the bar filled with post-game revelers in red jackets. We were told, optimistically, that it would be 30 minutes for a table, but we stood around for more than an hour until our names came up on the list.

"It's always worth the wait," said Lou Jane as we made our way through the cramped dining room, which hasn't changed in decades. The tables are still cloaked in red-and-white-checked plastic, the wooden floors are rough and scarred, and the frilly curtains at the windows are either off-white or nicotine-stained (or both).

We shared chicken livers first, a huge, sizzling pile of them that we bravely snapped up with our fingers. After eating a half-dozen of them, splashed with cream gravy, Ned confessed, "I feel like a heroin addict. I can't stop."

Sherry, the 27-year-veteran waitress (who has a Bettie Page hairdo and an uncanny memory), brought out dressing-drenched salads for everyone else and a bowl of chicken noodle soup for me. It's terrific soup, with fat, doughy noodles and big chunks of white meat floating in a pale, fragrant broth. (I dropped a hot liver in the liquid and discovered a new culinary sensation.)

The noise level was deafening, which meant I couldn't hear anyone at our table except Ned, who marveled at how calm and cool the waitresses seemed and how effortlessly the skinny busboys could balance heavy trays on their fingertips. Finally, the heavy tray laden with our dinner arrived. (I had already started to polish off the cellophane-wrapped crackers in the plastic mesh basket.) Bob, Ned and Marilyn ordered chicken — the four-piece dinner that cost less than five bucks in 1979 is now $13.75 — and Lou Jane opted for a custom-made meal: one big breast and a fat, breaded, fried pork chop. "It's not on the menu," she said, "but they'll do it."