For a good time:
It may have started as just a bar, all those years ago, but it has been much more than that to many aggies. For over 50 years, we’ve been on Northgate, celebrating the big wins, knocking back a few after a tough test, reminiscing and reconnecting with friends. We’ve been there for the awkward first dates, the 20 year wedding anniversaries, the nights to remember and the nights to forget!
Archive
Roger Creager playing to the crowd.
Dub Miller singing "Fightin' Texas Aggie"
June 14, 2014, the Dixie Chicken celebrated its 40th birthday with live music from Aggies and local talent.
Pat Ryan, Austin English, Dallas Shipp, Geoff Spahr, Rosehill, Clayton Gardner, Dub Miller, and Roger Creager all shared their talents to a large crowd packed throughout the promenade.
World's First
I have so many great memories of The Chicken...
The Dixie Chicken is where I had my first paid gig. It took 6 months of playing there for free and then I got a raise, 4 hours of music for $100. I have so many great memories of The Chicken and it will always have a place in my big maroon heart.
– Rich O’Toole, Texas Country artist
First Date
It was a regular girls night out. We (my girlfriends and I) always ended up at the Dixie Chicken for some Tijuana fries and Goodnight Irene to end the night. My friends and I loved to hear “Guacamole” by the Texas Tornados, so I went up to the front bartender to ask him to play it. I thought the bartender was really cute. I went back up there and asked him for a pad of paper and a pen. He threw me a guest check book and I wrote down my name and number, gave it back to him, and told him to call me. He did- that night after he got off around 4am! I didn’t meet up with him then because I was already asleep, but we did meet up soon after. The rest is history- that bartender, Mason Moore, is now my husband! We got married on Aug 1, 2009, had our first son on Dec 21, 2014, and are expecting twin girls in March 2017! Thanks Dixie Chicken for setting us up! Here is a picture from the night that we met. 🙂 (At least, that’s when I think we took it!)
Beth Moore
Sometimes, a little Chicken time can make you smile!
Marissa Tamble, Class of 2013
I love going back and seeing how little it’s changed...
My first Chicken experience was on the night we came back from Fish Camp entertaining the Fall 91 semester. Let’s just say our counselors gave us a warm welcome into one of the best Aggie traditions—a cold beer at the Chicken (quite a few). From that night I was hooked. I lived just across the street at Walton so I applied for a job soon after. My “interview” with owner Don Gantner consisted of “Where’d you grow up, boy?” And “What’s your daddy do for a living?” I guess he liked my answers because I soon found myself working in the kitchen. I can say I learned to cook making Freddy burgers and Tijuana fries. It was a fun job. I eventually was promoted to work the back bar (long brass one where pitchers are served) and as a “swamper” (the guys who make their way through the crowds collecting empty bottles and pitchers). They were some late nights—I’ve seen the Chicken with all the overhead lights on and it wasn’t pretty. But it was fun and I left each night with a plastic cup full of cash and quarters from my cut of the tip pitchers. Upsides: half price on food and beer (when not on the clock) and flirting with drunk girls. Downside: missed a few football games and being completely sober at closing. I can tap a keg and pour a perfect beer with minimal foam. I love going back and seeing how little it’s changed though pushing a stroller through it once was pretty surreal. It was a key part of Aggieland education and my favorite bar ever. Attached is a pic of the night I christened my ring (I’m holding the pitcher) and a more recent picture of my initials still carved on the wall in the front entry between the glass door and swinging doors. I etched them into the wall one night with my dorm key while checking ID’s.
Russell Kolb
16 years later
I worked at The Chicken in 1989…. my last semester in Aggieland. Started as the daytime front bar man and worked my way to Manager.
At the time, I noticed a pretty little sophomore working in the kitchen with Janelle and Freddie, named Maria. Smiles turned into flirts, turned into dates and we spent a few months dating.
I graduated, we broke up, and I moved away but I never forgot that pretty girl I dated while working at The Chicken.
16 years later (2005), I get an email, “Remember Me?” and six months later we were married!! We now have 2 kids (Class of ’26 & ’28).
Ben Denison ’88
Maria Theologos Denison ’94
I noticed him immediately...
I walked in with friends in January 1986. He already knew my friends, and I was new to the Dixie Chicken scene 🙂 He was playing 42 at a table with his friends. I noticed him immediately, especially his long hair in the back LOL~ There was some chemistry and I asked him to a sorority dance. He turned me down because I had just broken up with a boyfriend and needed a date! He then asked me to a basketball game in Austin, and I turned him down because I legitimately had a fever. To this day he doesn’t believe I was sick.
Three months later, we ran into to each other in summer school, and we have been together ever since. We married February of 1989, and we have three Aggie children: two graduates and a current sophomore. We recently went back there to hang out (well we do that a lot because now we own a house 10 minutes from the Dixie Chicken) the day before our 30th wedding anniversary, and he stood up and asked a stranger to record us. He popped the question again for another 30 years!
P.S. We recently sat at the Chicken and re-learned how to play 42 on our phones before we pulled out the dominos to actually play again.
9 April 1997: the 10th anniversary of the day I got my ring.
As I did not get the opportunity to celebrate the day, I made the executive decision to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the day. An honest school teacher, I lied to my then department chair (he went to that other school in Austin and I knew he would not understand) that my sister (’94) was sick and I would be missing two days of school during the last week of the six weeks because I needed to go see her, I drove 8 hours through rain and hail to meet her, I dunked my ring in style, I drove 8 hours home the next day, and taught my classes the following day with a smile. To this day, when my head hits the pillow, I do not have any trouble falling asleep! WHOOP!
My sister Betsy ‘94 (left) and me celebrating the above mentioned 10th anniversary of my ring day.
-SG Cranford ’88
we shared a couple pitchers talked for hours...
Well I’ve finally gotten around to sending you some pictures and telling our story….the summer of 95 I was working at the chicken…first in the kitchen flipping burgers, then the bar pouring drafts and finally a manager. Although just about every night was memorable at work at the Chicken, one was more so…the night I met a girl who worked upstairs counting money with Peggy. Looking back over 20 years we still have slight variations of the “true” story but the one common element we both recall is that life changed for both of us that night. After work we shared a couple pitchers talked for hours and 6 months later, we were engaged to be married. We took our engagement pictures on the front porch and had our reception party at shadow canyon. The Dixie Chicken has always been such a huge part of our lives that when we finally built a house 20 years later, we built a room that resembled the place we met, with wood walls, animal trophies hanging, pictures of good friends, license plates, neon signs, beer mirrors and even an authentic domino table we bought at an auction. Some of the best moments of our lives with some of the best friends we’ll ever have were right there in the famous Dixie Chicken.
Erick, c/o ’95, & Erin, c/o ’97, Westerholm
Heavy rain and strong winds led towards disaster...
The story of our roof collapse on May 27, 2020, was featured on Texas Voices.