Home›Places›Oklahoma City, OK›Chicken in the Rough (first restaurant)
Historic place

Chicken in the Rough (first restaurant)

2429 N Lincoln Blvd, Oklahoma City, OK

The Osbornes opened a nine-stool drive-in on Route 66 in 1936. It grew to seat 1,100 before the state capitol complex took the site.

📅 1936–1961🏛️ RestaurantDemolished
Open on the mapSlide back to 1936

The story

Beverly and Rubye Osborne founded Chicken in the Rough in Oklahoma City in 1936 and created the half-chicken dish that gave it its name. One story says they were driving to California when a bump spilled their picnic basket of chicken and Rubye said it was really chicken in the rough. They turned back. A competing account says the name came from a family picnic where they forgot the silverware.

The first standalone restaurant stood at 2429 North Lincoln, on U.S. Route 66. It began as a small drive-in with nine stools and four booths and later expanded to seat 1,100. Bob Hope and Gene Autry were patrons and friends of the Osbornes. In 1949 a grill that fried and steamed chicken at once was designed and franchising began. The building was demolished in 1961, and the state capitol complex was built on the site.

What's There Now

The state capitol complex was built on the site after the 1961 demolition.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

The first restaurant began with nine stools and four booths and later seated 1,100.
The logo was a rooster smoking a cigar and carrying a golf club.
Franchising began in 1949 after the Osbornes designed a grill that fried and steamed chicken at once.

Nearby history

Dolores Restaurant

33 NE 23rd St · 864 m away
Ralph and Amanda Stephens named this drive-in for their daughter in 1930. Duncan Hines recommended it in 1941, and it cl

Blue Note Lounge

2408 N Robinson Ave · 1.3 km away
A Route 66 lounge whose neon sign went up in 1961 and which the state historical society calls one of the city's oldest

Tower Theatre

425 NW 23rd St · 1.7 km away
A Streamline Moderne movie house with a pipe organ that went adult in 1989, closed in 2000, and came back as a music ven

Boulevard Cafeteria

525 NW 11th St · 2.5 km away
A cafeteria that opened in 1948 on Classen Drive and moved across the street in 1975. It closed in December 2015, ending

Oklahoma City University School of Law

800 N Harvey Ave · 2.6 km away
OCU bought the building in 2012, and its law school moved in beginning in 2015.

Oklahoma Publishing Company Building (Daily Oklahoman Building)

500 N Broadway Ave · 2.8 km away
A five-story Daily Oklahoman home built in 1909 after the paper's earlier building burned.

Know something about Chicken in the Rough (first restaurant)? An old photo, a date, a memory of what stood here before?

Add it on the map
Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_in_the_Rough