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<\/a>The iconic restaurant, with a large collection of paintings and antique ceramics depicting roosters and chickens adorning its walls and shelves, has had four homes in its 75 years.<\/p>\n
The first Chicken Pie Shop opened in 1938 at Fifth Avenue and B Street, Downtown. A second location opened during the 1950s, with a short stint at the southeast corner of Fifth and Robinson avenues in Uptown. During the next decade the Downtown pie shop closed and the Uptown location had moved across the street to the northeast corner, spending nearly 25 years in the spot where Starbucks operates today.<\/p>\n
In 1990, new owner-partner John Townsend moved the business to its current location on El Cajon Boulevard in North Park, where the restaurant expanded in square footage and continued to thrive.<\/p>\n
After Townsend died in 2011, his wife Lynn took over, redecorating, painting, getting new lights for the parking lot, opening for breakfast and expanding the menu, which now includes a variety of pastas, steaks and salads.<\/p>\n One menu item she has not changed is their \u201cFamous Chicken Pie Dinner,\u201d which, for $7.50, still comes with a hearty chicken and turkey pot pie, mashed potatoes and chicken gravy, the vegetable side of the day, coleslaw, a roll and one slice of eight different dessert pie options.<\/p>\n Daily specials are also still in place, with their rolled chicken tacos on Wednesday nights and fish tacos on Fridays.<\/p>\n Lynn Townsend said the employees are the heart and soul of the establishment, many having worked there for decades. Manager Linda Real, who started as a server in 1981, said the restaurant\u2019s primary baker, Steve Mercado, is the longest-standing employee, having baked his first dessert pie in 1955. Shalia Costello has been serving the restaurant\u2019s customers the longest; she started at age 18 in 1976.<\/p>\n Mercado, who said he started baking for the first Uptown pie shop at age 14, has nothing but fond memories during a lifelong career at the Chicken Pie Shop. One of his earliest recollections is the time he was sent Downtown to teach the kitchen staff how to bake the fruit dessert pies he had just perfected.<\/p>\n Still proud of his ever-popular dinner roll and dessert pie recipes, Mercado said the chicken pie recipe came from original owner George Whitehead; it is a recipe Mercado has guarded for almost sixty years.<\/p>\n \u201cGeorge said \u2018never change the recipe. If you change something, the chicken pie shop will be gone\u2019. So I\u2019ve tried to keep everything the same,\u201d Mercado said, adding that John Townsend was his \u201cbest friend\u201d and is sorely missed.<\/p>\n Townsend\u2019s son Bob, a local golf professional who runs the San Diego Golf Institute at Mission Valley\u2019s Riverwalk Golf Club, also helps out when he can and was on hand to greet customers during the anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of us have been here over 20 years,\u201d Real said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great place to work, we serve quality food and we\u2019re serving the people we know.\u201d<\/p>\n San Diego area customers have stayed loyal to the Pie Shop for decades, as indicated on the card made available over their anniversary weekend near the restaurant\u2019s entrance, asking guests: \u201cWhen was your first visit?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSince 1940,\u201d wrote Lloyd Lewis.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst time on Fifth & Robinson in the \u201870\u2019s,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n \u201c1970, I was 8. Great pies,\u201d wrote Summer W.<\/p>\n \u201cHappy 75 years we\u2019ve been coming since the late 80\u2019s,\u201d wrote Betty and John Wright.<\/p>\n \u201c1964 at the Hillcrest location,\u201d said Doug Mooney, Jr.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were right here the day Reagan was shot. Sad day, but memorable,\u201d wrote Jim & Kathleen and boys.<\/p>\n Lifelong friends Needa Cole, Diane Merrell and Ellen Reidel have been coming to the pie shop since 1947, when it was located Downtown.\u00a0\u201cOur mothers were bus drivers during the war,\u201d Cole said. \u201cWe\u2019d all hop on the bus and take it to the Chicken Pie Shop.\u201d<\/p>\n Some wrote on the card that it was their very first time, including a couple that drove from Scripps Ranch after seeing a segment on the local news. Though hundreds of longtime repeat customers turned out for the three-day celebratory weekend, Real said she was surprised by the number of \u201cfirst-timers\u201d she spoke to.<\/p>\n \u201cThe anniversary weekend was a lot of fun,\u201d Real said. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing we are still here after 75 years. It says a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>