Out here in Southern California, the Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm, an amusement park, offers a take-out version of their fried chicken which is far better than KFC, but the price is almost double. My mother worked there as a waitress in 1941-42 (when it was still a berry farm), and if you ate there in the 1950’s, your chicken might have come from my uncle’s ranch, located where Disneyland now stands, or from its later location in Olive Heights.
We lived in Santa Anna and then Chino from my infancy to 1974 and yes, we went to Knott’s Berry Farm a lot. Used to wear my cowboy holster and chaps (my father had them made for me in Okinawa) with a cowboy hat, boots and cap pistols. Innocent times.
“Out here in Southern California, the Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm, an amusement park, offers a take-out version of their fried chicken which is far better than KFC, but the price is almost double. My mother worked there as a waitress in 1941-42 (when it was still a berry farm), and if you ate there in the 1950’s, your chicken might have come from my uncle’s ranch, located where Disneyland now stands, or from its later location in Olive Heights.”
Knotts was cheap entertainment for my family. Before they charged admission, a family could go and let the kids play on wagons, listen to live music, then have moderately priced family meals. Fill up on rolls and jams. I seem to recall a back annex to the Chicken Restaurant, with a limited lower priced menu.
Or maybe they just took us in and out the back entrance, since we were a line of noisy little boys.