Chicken Annie's & Chicken Mary's

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in the summer of 2000

Crawford County's famous fried-chicken rivalry has had folks clucking for the past 50 years.

Enter Crawford County and you're in chicken country. Fried chicken, that is. The area boasts more than half a dozen restaurants known for serving the popular Kansas dish, and two of the most well-known-Chicken Annie's and Chicken Mary's-have stood just a few yards apart for more than 50 years.

Both restaurants have large billboards along Highway 69 north of Pittsburg. The signs point east in the direction of Coal Mining Camp 13 Yale, where the two restaurants are located. The area, once dotted with mining towns, is mostly woodlands separated by long, narrow lakes, the remains of the deep pits where mining shovels dug down to find layers of coal.

It was the miners who supported these chicken eateries in the beginning and then spread the word about each establishment's own unique recipe for fried chicken. Thus, the two restaurants-today, both can seat more than 400 people each -avoided the chopping block as the mining town slowly died around them.

"We hear all kinds of stories and, no, Annie and Mary were not sisters," said Donna Lipoglav, one of the third-generation of family members to operate Chicken Annie's.

Instead, Ann Frances Rehak Pichler and Mary Zerngast were neighbors, who had much in common. Both were the wives of coal miners and residents of Camp 13 Yale. Both lost their families' principal means of support and, out of necessity, used their cooking skills to start eating establishments. Ann Pichler began serving sandwiches and home brew to hungry miners in 1933. Mary Zerngast, who lived just down the street, started serving chicken dinners in her kitchen in 1941.

The two restaurants have survived nearly side by side ever since. "There may have been some rivalry in the beginning, but there's none now," Lipoglav said. "It's just friendly competition. Fortunately there are enough customers to keep both restaurants busy."

Elizabeth "Tootie" Zerngast, co-owner of Chicken Mary's, agreed. "This is just chicken-eating country. If one of us is closed for a day, the other has almost more business than we can handle."

Customers travel from as far away as Kansas City, Wichita, Parsons, Fort Scott, and the Missouri towns of Joplin, Nevada, and Lamar. For many, the two restaurants are a place to meet friends from other cities, Lipoglav said.

For Annie's grandson and Mary's granddaughter, the restaurants brought wedded bliss. Anthony and Donna (Zerngast) Pichler continue the tradition started by their grandmothers. The operate Pichler's Chicken Annie's three miles south of Pittsburg.

CHICKEN ANNIE’S

Caught on the track when a loaded coal car approached, Charles Pichler saw his luck run out in March of 1933. The accident in 24 Western mine cost him his legs; one had to be amputated below the knee, and the other was crushed. Forced to support her family, Annie Pichler found the answer in her kitchen. Realizing Camp 13 Yale was a bustling community full of hungry miners, she served a ham or veal sandwich and a mug of home brew for 15 cents.

"Word got around Mom was serving food," Louella Lipoglav said. As more and more customers came, Annie turned to the chickens and garden vegetables her family raised near their home and began serving fried-chicken dinners.

Today, Chicken Annie's is operated by a third generation of family members who continue to serve the founder's original fried-chicken recipe, which they keep a secret. "We've got a good thing going; we're really lucky," said Donna, Louella's daughter, who quit a job in Kansas City to return to the restaurant business. "Nothing about the food has changed, except an expanded menu. We serve a good product. Everything is made from scratch-the potato salad and coleslaw start from potatoes and heads of cabbage. And it's reasonably priced, a lot of people can't get over the prices."

Although steaks and spaghetti are offered on the menu, it's Annie's fried chicken recipe that attracts most people. "At least 90 percent of our customers order chicken," Donna said. "And probably 90 percent order onion rings."

The home-battered rings have been another favorite for generations. Other family recipes are used for the restaurant's coleslaw, flavored with garlic, and the potato salad, made with vinegar, oil, and spices.

Louella still remembers her mother hard at work, hand-cutting each chicken, breading each piece, and then pan-frying it in their kitchen. Annie's original dinners consisting of three pieces of chicken, German potato salad, German coleslaw, green pepper, a tomato slice, and bread-sold for 75 cents in' the 1930s. It was a family business. The children took care of the chickens and the garden and then prepared the tables for the restaurant's customers. Charles, with his artificial leg, was in charge of the register and bar in the family home that was once three rooms, but was expanded many times to meet the needs of the business' growing clientele.

In 1961, the Pichlers retired, leaving the business to their children, Louella and Louis Lipoglav and Carl and Rosemary Pichler, In 1972, a new building was constructed within a block of the original site. At the same time, new items were added to the menu, including spaghetti, home-style chicken-fried steak, fried shrimp, fish, and sirloin steak.

Annie's grandchildren, Donna and Lonnie Lipoglav, are joined by Lonnie's wife, Janice, in operating the restaurant today under the guidance of their parents.

CHICKEN MARY’S

Mary Zerngast opened her home at Coal Mine Camp 13 Yale to customers after her husband, Joe, became too ill to continue working in the mines in 1941. Following in the footsteps of several other women who started cooking for the miners to make ends meet, Mary served fried chicken, German potato salad, and coleslaw to Joe's friends around the kitchen table, where only two or three could eat at one time.

"She would sell the dinners for 25 cents to the coal miners," Tootie Zerngast said. As news of her home-cooked meals spread, more customers arrived at her kitchen. With no set hours, a knock on the door would mean getting out the frying pan. "Sometimes, between 10 and 11 p.m., some boys from Minden mines would come and she would get up and cook for them," Zerngast adds.

When the business outgrew the kitchen in 1945, Joe and Mary purchased the Foxtown Mining Camp Pool Hall, moved it adjacent to their home, and named it Joe's Place. The family never charged extra for laughter, and customers often got an extra serving of humor. Mary, wearing an apron held up with two safety pins because she didn't like straps, always enjoyed engaging in lively conversation with customers whenever she could get out of the kitchen.

"She was five foot one and about as wide," Zerngast said. "She was so jolly, the guys would come in, they would talk, and she would laugh and rub her belly. She was just a dear, dear person."

Before long, the restaurant became known as Chicken Mary's.

The couple's children, Joe (known as Zig) and Mickey, helped with the business as it prospered. When Joe died and Mary suffered a stroke, it was Zig and Tootie who took over the restaurant in 1961. Just five years later, their son, Larry, and his wife, Karen, joined the business and a new establishment, which they continue to operate, was constructed nearby.

The family protects Mary's recipe for making crisp, light, tender, and juicy fried chicken. "We make it the way we always did it," Zerngast said. "We add spices to the flour, then we dip the chicken in egg, flour, and crumbs."

Other items on the menu are fish, shrimp, barbecued brisket, steak, and spaghetti. All the food is made from scratch. "The majority of the customers want chicken, and the German potato salad still goes best with that. We also sell a lot of gizzards and livers. And, our homemade onion rings go out with almost every dinner."

Today, while a fourth generation of Zerngasts is being trained in the business, people outside the family also are involved. General manager of the restaurant is Lana Brooks, who began working as a waitress at the restaurant in 1969. Her two sisters, Joyce and Lori Lloyd, have worked at the restaurant since 1976 and her husband, Harold, joined the business last year.