Chicken Delight Ad – April 3, 1964

Lorain old-timers remember when Chicken Delight had a store on W. 21st Street near Leavitt Road. It held its Grand Opening in Feb. 1964, and was one of the first (if not the first) fast-food chicken restaurants on Lorain's west side.

 

(Minnie Pearl's Chicken restaurant opened a few years later on Leavitt in September 1969, and Colonel Sander's Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't show up on Oberlin Avenue until April 1971.)

A few months after it opened, Chicken Delight ran this ad (below) in the Lorain Journal on April 3. 1964.

It's a fairly amusing ad now. People (usually an insufferable boss and his wife) dropping in for dinner unexpectedly seems to only happen in old Blondie comic strips.

Chicken Delight had a pretty good concept, with memorable advertising and a great mascot. Here's a 1963 radio spot.

Best of all were the delivery vehicles with the Chicken Delight mascot roosting on the roof.

Thinking back, we probably only had it once in the Brady household. That's because Mom made her own tasty fried chicken, and as I recall, we always had honey on the table. I still like to dip fried chicken in honey.

The concept of honey-flavored fried chicken was the whole idea behind this restaurant chain (below).

But launching the chain eventually turned out to be a boo boo, and today there's only one Yogi Bear's Honey Fried Chicken left, in Hartsville, South Carolina. It's on my bucket of chicken list to eat there someday.

Anyway, as I mentioned in earlier Chicken Delight posts, the chain still exists, up in the land of Maple Leafers. Here's the link to its website. But don't try to order and have it delivered; the DoorDash® driver would have to cross the U. S. Canadian border, and there's a good chance the border agents might confiscate it, especially if it is near dinner time.