-
Bartee Haile
A businessman, who knew nothing about feeding hungry Texans, and his behind-the-scenes partner, also new to the restaurant business, opened the first Pig Stand on the outskirts of Dallas April 15, 1922.
Jesse G. Kirby was a true visionary whose ideas revolutionized dining out not only in the Lone Star State but in towns across the country. His opinion that “people with cars are so lazy they don’t want to get out of them” led to the drive-in restaurant, with customers placing their orders and eating their meals without leaving their vehicles. This novel approach, the first of many ingenious innovations, proved to be extremely popular with the motoring public.
So-called “carhops” enhanced the unique dining experience. Teenaged boys raced to the car, jumping on the running board before it came to a full stop, to take the surprised driver’s order. Sometime later the replacement of male carhops by young girls on roller skates met with the approval of most customers.
The Pig Stand was a smash hit from the start. The perennial favorite on the menu was the Pig Sandwich, “prepared with tender slices of roast pork loin, pickle relish and barbecue sauce.” Within two and a half years, ten Dallas locations were selling 50,000 each and every week in a city with a population of slightly more than 200,000.
To Jesse Kirby’s way of thinking, the bigger the pig the better. He had already expanded into six other states by 1924 with company-owned locations as well as franchised sites. In his sales pitch to prospective buyers, he liked to say, “Give a little pig a chance and it will make a hog of itself.”
Kirby must have been a heck of salesman, but then he had a product that really sold itself. By 1934 more than 100 Pig Stands were advertising “A Good Meal At Any Time” in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New York, Alabama and California and making good on that promise.
That qualified the Pig Stand as the first restaurant chain in the U.S. For some reason this indisputable fact is generally ignored in favor of Howard Johnson, which did not open its second location until 1932. By that time, five score Pig Stands were already going strong in nine states.
Sadly founder Kirby did not live to see his little piggy grow up. He suddenly fell ill on a train trip to St Louis in 1926 and died of pneumonia soon after reaching his destination.
No one would have blamed his widow for selling the company and getting on with her life. After all, Shirley Kirby had two young boys to raise. But she refused to consider the tempting offers that came rolling in and instead, with the support of Dr. Reuben Jackson, her late husband’s backer, took personal charge of the day-to-day operation of the Pig Stand empire.
Jesse Kirby would have proud of the superb job she did. Under Shirley’s leadership the chain continued to add new “links” and the “firsts” that were such an essential part of the Pig Stand tradition.
Here’s a list of impressive firsts that the Pig Stand had a legitimate right to claim: the aforementioned first restaurant chain; the first onion ring; the first chicken fried steak sandwich; neon lights; and, of course, Texas Toast. And don’t forget the first drive-in and, of course, the carhops.
It was only a matter of time before a slew of imitators, some of them short on scruples, tried to hone in on the Pig Stand craze. The names they chose made clear their intentions: Dixiepig Stand, Flying Pig Stand, Bob’s Pig Shop, Van’s Pig Stands and Pearl’s Pig Stand.
The Kirbys, Shirley and her sons, took the Dixiepig Stand to court, but the test case turned out to be an expensive waste of time. That was when they decided to make the original Pig Stand stand out.
They paid a respected architect to design a colorful sign that could be seen for blocks. At the top of the oversized sign was a profile of a pink pig with “Pig Sandwich” on its side set against a purple background. Beneath the porker were the words “Pig Stand Restaurant” on a field of light green. The multi-hued counterpunch succeeded in putting the competition in its place.
The Great Depression forced the Pig Stand, now under the management of son B.J. Kirby, to tighten its belt by retreating to its Texas roots. The economic recovery of the Fifties should have given the company a boost, but it did not.
By the fortieth anniversary in 1961, the litter was down to 23 locations. Former carhop Royce Hailey presided over the irreversible decline of the Pig Stand. He tried to postpone the inevitable by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005 but to no avail. The next year, the last two Pig Stands turned out the lights and locked the doors to the dismay of the once mighty chain’s loyal customers.