It is the story of five men, two pioneering fast-food chains, and one kiss.
Do you remember the little diners of the Rockyfeller Hamburger System? A Rockyfeller diner was what Hemingway might call “a clean, well-lighted place,” albeit nothin’ fancy: a small metal portable building, a window air-conditioner (maybe), a single row of vinyl-seated stools, a jukebox, a pay phone, a modest menu (hash browns, bowl of chili, ham and eggs, double-meat cheeseburger with Rocky Sauce).
Everything about Rockyfeller diners said “speed”: Efficient staff dishing out short-order food to diners who perched for a few minutes on stools in a pre-fab building just a few steps from the sidewalk or car they had walked in from. And if they didn’t have time to sit down, for years Rockyfeller sold five hamburgers for a buck. A company slogan: “Buy them by the sack.”
For sixty years Rockyfeller’s hash-and-dash business model worked, worked well enough that Rockyfellers are fondly remembered decades later by truck drivers and debutantes, by paper boys and businessmen.
Rockyfellers were among the earliest of the come-as-you-are, come-night-or-day diners, established just a few years after the Koutsoubos family’s Famous Hamburgers diner that we remember on the corner of Main and 1st streets downtown and long before drive-in restaurants such as Carlson’s and the Clover, long before McDonald’s, Mr. Quick, Griff’s, or Dairy Queen. (See Cowtown Yoostabes, Chow-Down Edition: Coney Islands, Carhops, and DQs.)
The Rockyfeller story begins in the 1920s. According to this legal notice, by 1928 the chain was in business as Robert H. Chesney and E. W. Youngmeyer “of Fort Worth” changed the name of their company from “Rockyfeller System” to “Rockyfeller Hamburger System.” This is the earliest local reference to the Rockyfeller system I have found. The 1928 city directory lists Youngmeyer with one of the two Fort Worth Rockyfellers. But if Fort Worth had only diners nos. 10 and 15, where were the others? I find no Rockyfeller diners listed in Dallas, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio at that time. Also, I can find no evidence that Robert H. Chesney and E. W. Youngmeyer actually lived in Fort Worth. But a Robert Hamlin Chesney (1894-1977) and an Earl W. Youngmeyer (1896-1974) are buried in Sedgwick County, Kansas.
Some of the first Rockyfeller buildings, measuring ten by twenty feet, were made in Fort Worth.
The chain grew slowly in Fort Worth: four Rockyfellers by 1929 and five by 1930. By 1937 there were still five.
By 1938 Fort Worth’s sixth Rockyfeller (no. 22) had opened at 4015 Camp Bowie Boulevard.
The advantage of portable buildings, of course, was that diners could be relocated: a movable feast. For example, in 1939 Rockyfeller no. 12, which had been at 1000 West 7th Street in the 1938 city directory, relocated to 902 West 7th Street. Note the ad for Bobby Peters and his Continentals at Casino Ballroom.
In 1941 this ad reminded patrons of the new Bowie Theater that Rockyfeller no. 22 was located just two blocks away. Rockyfellers were often located near movie theaters.
Help wanted ads from 1942.
On West Main Street in Arlington in 1953. (Photo from University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.)
Ad in Fort Worth’s Jewish Post in 1955.
Dallas in 1959. (Photo from DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.)
But with the passage of time, new fast-food chains began to take a bite out of Rockyfeller’s bottom line. In 1985 Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy made a gustatory pilgrimage to the last Rockyfeller stand still standing in Texas—no. 22 at 4015 Camp Bowie Boulevard.
Today the Rockyfeller chain is no more, and few of its buildings remain. But at 3217 North Main Street stands the building (circa 1937) that once housed Rockyfeller no. 11 at 2327 North Main. It was relocated to its current location in 1957. The building now houses Sunny Burger.
And now the rest of the story. And that kiss.
Today the Texas secretary of state’s office lists the Rockyfeller Hamburger System’s “registered agent” as Royce Hailey. But according to Tarrant County Historic Resources Survey, Rockyfeller co-founder Robert H. Chesney owned the chain until the early 1970s. Perhaps the Robert Hamlin Chesney (1894-1977) who is buried in Kansas sold the chain to Royce Hailey.
“And who,” you ask, “was Royce Hailey?”
Glad you asked. To answer your question, let’s back up to October 1921. That’s when entrepreneur Jessie G. Kirby and financial backer Dr. Reuben Jackson opened the first Pig Stand drive-in diner along the Dallas-Fort Worth Pike in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. Although claims of firsts are often debated, some historians say the Oak Cliff Pig Stand was the world’s first drive-in diner.
Kirby explained his thinking: “People with cars are so lazy, they don’t want to get out of them.”
So Kirby let people with cars be lazy. The chain’s advertising slogans included “As near as your automobile” and “America’s motor lunch.” (People were indeed becoming time conscious in 1921: White Castle, said to be the world’s first fast-food chain, also opened in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas.)
The Pig Stand chain added (hot) links quickly: For comparison, by the time the second Howard Johnson opened in 1932, there were already more than one hundred Pig Stands—company-owned or franchised—from coast to coast.
Most of what could be said about Rockyfellers could be said about Pig Stands, although Pig Stands usually were more substantial, site-built buildings.
Pig Stand was the porcine equivalent of the bovine-based Rockyfeller chain. Standing out amid Pig Stand’s menu items such as steaks, fried chicken, pies and fries, sundaes, shakes, a few fish and Mexican dishes, and even salads was its signature (and trademarked) Tennessee-style barbecued-pork sandwich: the “Pig Sandwich.”
That first Pig Stand offered only in-car dining. Indoor dining would come later. But letting diners remain in their cars to eat presented a logistical challenge: how to get diners’ food out to their cars? Kirby and Jackson’s first Pig Stand is also credited with the first carhops and curb service.
In the beginning Pig Stand carhops were boys. Only later did girls take over the job.
In 1930 one such boy carhop was fourteen-year-old Royce Hailey of Oak Cliff. Years later Hailey would recall that in 1930 he pestered the manager of that original Pig Stand diner for a job as a carhop until the manager—perhaps to test the boy’s gumption, perhaps just to embarrass the boy—told Hailey that he could have the job if . . . if Hailey would go across the street and kiss a girl who was sitting in a porch swing.
The intrepid Royce Hailey marched across the street and informed the girl in the swing of his mission. Hailey got his kiss. Hailey got his job. And twenty-five years later Hailey got the presidency of the Pig Stand system. Add another twenty years, and he was sole owner of the system.
That was some kiss!
Some historians credit Pig Stand diners with three more firsts. In 1929 a Pig Stand cook accidentally dropped an onion slice into a bowl of batter and then, on a whim, dipped the battered onion slice into hot cooking oil. Behold the onion ring! And while Hailey was working at the Pig Stand in Beaumont in 1941 he is said to have invented Texas toast when he asked the local bakery to slice his diner’s bread thicker. Problem was, the thicker bread wouldn’t fit into the Pig Stand’s toaster. The cook suggested slathering the bread with butter and toasting it on the grill. Hailey named the creation “Texas toast.” Hailey also is said to have invented the chicken-fried steak sandwich, for which he won first place in a national menu competition.
Pig Stands are also said to have been the first diners to use air-conditioning, neon signs, and fluorescent lighting.
By 1956 Fort Worth had four Pig Stands.
In 1961 Royce Hailey looked back on forty years of Pig Stand history.
By 1968 Fort Worth Pig Stands and Rockyfellers had plenty of competition as just two of several chains of fast-food diners.
That competition was fierce, a real food fight. Indeed, by 1985, the Star-Telegram wrote, the last Rockyfeller diner in Texas—no. 22 at 4015 Camp Bowie Boulevard—was for sale, its lot being sold out from under it. Note that the feature refers to Royce Hailey’s Pig Stand chain as “the owner” and the “parent” of the Rockyfellers diners. Hailey said, “Rockyfeller stands were low-volume fast food. High-volume fast-food operations like McDonald’s beat us out.”
Rockyfeller’s last stand closed in 1987. But the building lived on: It was moved to Eagle Mountain Lake.
Royce Hailey died in 2000 and is buried in Dallas.
And in 2006, seventy-six years after the intrepid Royce Hailey kissed a girl in a porch swing, the Pig Stand company went bankrupt and closed.
(Thanks to Earl Belcher for suggesting this topic.)
I would give anything for a copy of Rocky Sauce recipe ! I remember going there with my daddy when I was a little girl . Their hamburgers were sooo good .. mostly because of that sauce.. anyone out there have the recipe ??
Ketchup, mayo, onion powder, sweet relish and dash of worsteshire sauce.
They should have NEVER allowed smoking in any restaurant or anywhere else, for that matter.
I have a worn and greasy menu from a late night visit in the middle 1980,s Large Hamburger $ 1.20 I cannot remember the details, they are no doubt erased by the Whiskey, looking at the Menu brings memories back.
The original Rocky’s on Camp Bowie was a wooden building at a perpendicular alignment to the street. The grill was just to your left as you entered the front door for ease of ordering hamburgers to go. Then it was replaced by a metal building running parallel to the street. I’ve never been able to find a photo of that original wooden building. It was the first Rocky’s I ever ate at.
I have many fond memories from the early 50’s of the Rockyfeller in Dallas on Hall Street just south of Gaston Avenue. My father managed a business next door so most every Saturday morning was spent with my dad at his office followed by lunch at the Rockyfeller. In later years, many an after beer joint late night was spent in the location at Webb’s Chapel and Northwest Highway in Dallas. Frito chili pie and the chili cheese omelet were our late night staples. Jackie, the overnight cook, created a dish for us that combined all the elements of both plus shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes. We ultimately named this plate-sized concoction Jackie’s Mess.
I remember the Hemphill store as a kid in the 70s. Still have five of the coffee mugs I got at a garage sale.
I would kill for the recipe for ROCKY SAUCE!!!
Bill, I would like to talk to you. Scott Belshe – Meteor Hamburgers, Wylie TX.
I just noticed the comment from Scott B.
If would still like to talk!
Love the story, My mother was a manager at the Rockyfellers on north main in Fort Worth, and the one on Camp Bowie. Sometimes I would peel potatoes at the north main location. Spent many nights at the Camp Bowie location after high school football games in the mid 70s, my mother and aunt also worked at the Pig Stand on Main in the mid to late 60s. Somewhere I still have the recipe for the Rocky sauce.
Thanks, Bill. I enjoyed learning the history of those two chains.
Another great article. Reminds me of all the great old places on the west side: Carnation, Youngblood’s Chicken, Goff’s, El Chico. We ate often at Rockyfeller # 22 when working at the Bowie Theatre…also great ham and cheese sandwiches from the deli case at Miller and Hanger Grocery just west of the theatre.
Thanks, Ann. To us East Siders, Camp Bowie Boulevard was the other side of the moon until we were old enough to drive.