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!
Spinning records and cheap beer!
Before Don installed electronic cash registers and before I had a single strand of grey hair on my head…my guess 1979 or 80… We were still spinning LP’s; had crackers in the barrel; a guy named Woodie who you most definitely did not want to play pool against; 75 cent Pearl, Shiner and Lone Star, 80 cents for a Miller Lite and 35 cents for Texas Pride….; oh and our imports were Little Kings from Cincinnati and Lowenbrau from Germany (actually Dallas)…. Donnie’s wife snapped this pic…
– Mark Rogers
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.
The Chicken will be a place we will return to for years to come...
A short story and a long relationship
To keep it short… Let’s just say that I got the complete tour. Including an escort to Don’s office. Closest I ever got to the Wild West. Many amazing times with my buddies playing pool and 42. Still stop by for a burger and Tijuana fries when I can! Met Tara Long (now Hutton) on the Fish Camp bus and have somehow got her to hang around… Still convince her to shoot a little pool there now and then.
I was in the market for a part-time job...
Greetings from Syracuse, New York.
In 1983 I was a sophomore at A&M, living just across the street in Crocker Hall (now gone). I was in the market for a part-time job and someone suggested the “Chicken”…my first thought was… “yeah..I like fried chicken!” Went over and was surprised that it wasn’t a fried chicken joint but a beer saloon. Asked the front bartender where to go to apply…he sent me to the back and up the stairs…as I recall it was Peggy’s first week on the job, she handed me an application….then a deep voice inside the connecting office asked… “Who’s out there? …..come on in Bud.” I went in and sat down, first a bit intimidated by the guns on the wall and the pistol on the desk, “I’m Don he said, lookin for work?”….. and we proceeded to have a nice 20 minute conversation…..having nothing to do with my qualifications to work. We instead talked about where I was from, my family, my hobbies…like you were talking with a long-lost uncle..catching up on things. At the end “Don said… “OK Bud, we’ll give a roll in the hay, Peggy sign him up!” That was my first introduction to Don and the Dixie Chicken.
Started out on Bud Crew….as most do. The first job I had was cleaning out Pookies, the building across Bottle Cap Alley. It had been a shot bar in the late 70’s, full of old furniture, cases of old liquor, mixes and such. We filled Don’s truck 3 times with stuff to haul off to the dump. Don was turning it into an ice cream parlor as I remember.
Ended up working at the Chicken Oil Company, then back to the Chicken, swamping, then the back bar, then the front bar and eventually weekend manager. Worked from 1983 thru 1986. Have wonderful memories, I helped with changing out the snakes, we rotated the rattlesnakes between cages upstairs and the wall cage. Every once in a while a city highway worker would show up with a bigger rattler and we’d have to shuffle snakes. The Chicken only served beer at that time, bottles up front and glass pitchers at the back. Can’t tell you how many Sundays I spent polishing the brass at the back bar. I remember the ruckus Don started when he suggested raising the price of a longneck from 75 cents to $1. We were making a quarter tip on just about every bottle sold. We convinced Don to raise the price to 90 cents so we could still make a dime on each. Remember the cast of character’s who frequented the bar on weekends.
Enclosing a couple of pictures from the good ole days.
The first is of the front of the Chicken around 1983.
The second is of the Chicken staff at the 1983 (1984?) 4th of July party Don held out at some land he owned next to the Brazos River. I’m the blond guy holding up the Miller High Life in the middle of the picture. JB Fletcher, in the green hat, was the manager. The girl in the front row with the white hat is Don’s niece (don’t remember her name). Next to her is one of Don’s daughters, Don is holding the other. I only remember Katie’s name. I can remember all of the faces and voices of everyone in the picture but not names….time has erased them from my memory.
Hope this brings some joy and memories. Was very sad to hear the news of his passing a number of years back. He was one of a kind.
– Ross Shepherd
42, it's the answer to life...
42. It’s the answer to life, coincidentally, it was the game of my life at the Chicken. I shot pool a lot as well, but most of my faded memories involve playing Bones. With my fish buddies, with old friends and new, it was a staple. I actually learned how to play at the tables in front of McInnis. It was practically a requirement to play if you did bonfire. I remember going to the Chicken almost weekly one year.
It was either sophomore or junior year… I can’t remember which because it all blends together. But I remember. I guess it was junior year, as beer is in many of those blurs. But I remember. The clacking of the dominoes hitting each other as someone dropped down the box onto a table. When someone was washing, I was watching for the one with the little nick on the corner? It was a good one. The laughs that ensued as we played. Follow me. Trying to improvise signs with my partner. It was never successful. Slamming down my last piece signaling I wouldn’t be the bitch in a box as we closed down.
Stories were always shared over a game of bones with a side of beer. Deep conversations were had. Philosophical discussions. Obnoxious arguments. Dumb jokes. Slightly drunkenness and a sad attempt to play but not remembering all the rules and bullshitting my way through a round? Yeah. My tenure at A&M was the best four consecutive years of my life. The Chicken certainly deserves some credit for that.
Then, there he was...
It was JULY 5, 1976, when I met my husband at the DIXIE CHICKEN:
After losing my first husband in a car crash, I was at the Dixie Chicken wearing a pink tank top that read “I’m Single” and blue jean shorts. I had one beer: Schlitz in a bottle. (I don’t, and didn’t drink much.)
Then… there he was wearing a V-neck white t-shirt, Wrangler blue jeans, boots, and had blonde hair: “Are you alone, or are you waiting for someone?”
I hesitated only a second, “I’m alone.”
He invited me to his table, where he was playing pool.
We’re now married, our three children are grown, and we have seven grandchildren. It all started at a random meeting – at the Dixie Chicken.
Thank you, folks – for the love of my life.
– Sheri Bockelman
Put a ring on it
JT (from Jack Hilliard) was my bartender at Rebel when I first met him. A few weeks later he asked me to be his girlfriend sitting at this table on the back porch of the Dixie Chicken on April 17, 2013. This picture was taken at that table on our one year anniversary. We still sit there when we enjoy lunch on a work day or drinks after work. Northgate introduced us, but the Dixie Chicken sealed the deal.
Almost 4 years later,
He needs to put a ring on it,
Jessica
UPDATE: On September 10, 2017 JT proposed at the same back porch he asked me to be his girlfriend 4 years ago.
Soon to be Mrs. JT,
Jessica
UPDATE 2: June 2, 2018, JT and Jessica were married in front of family and friends. Congrats to the happy couple!
What's the worst the could happen taking your date to a concert?
It was 1998ish and I was living in (and B.T.H.O. Bonfire with) McInnis Hall on Northside (which unfortunately got torn down to build some fancy schmancy dorm with a Starbucks in it, but I digress)…. and one night I was on a date with a girl from FHK. We walked over to the Dixie Chicken to get a Freddy Burger and to see this brand new Texas County singer/songwriter named Kevin Fowler, who just so happened to be playing an acoustic set inside that night. Well, Kevin had a little merch table set up, but didn’t have anyone to stand there and sell his merch while he was playing. So, he asked if anyone would help him out, to which my date happily volunteered (because of course she did).
So Kevin is playing, my date is selling merch, and I am sitting there awkwardly by myself eating a cheeseburger. When he finished the show, he hung out at his merch table for a while and talked to all the folks who wanted to say hi. As things started to wind down, and all the merch-selling duties appeared to be over, I asked my date if she was ready to go. This is when she leaned over and informed me that she was just going to stay a little longer and hang out with Kevin for a while and that I could go ahead and go because she would not be walking back to the dorms with me that night. Ouch. As I strolled back across University Avenue to my dorm all alone and confused about the drastic turn of events that had just occurred, I thought to myself…” surely there has got to be something to be learned from this experience”. That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks….girls like guys that play guitar! And dang it, I needed to learn how to play the guitar! So I did just that.
I guess when it comes down to it, if it had not been for the Dixie Chicken, there would probably not be a Brandon McDermott Band..(not that we are a big deal or anything, but we have a lot of fun playing music). Because after that night I learned how to play guitar, started writing songs, put a Texas Country band together, released some albums and have even shared the stage with Kevin Fowler himself multiple times, who went on to become a huge star in the Texas Music Scene, and by the way turns out is a really nice guy…though when we play shows with him, I definitely don’t let my wife volunteer to sell his merch.
I majored in Dixie Chicken Studies
To hear my momma tell it, in the Fall of 1994 I majored in Bonfire, but in the Spring of 1995 I majored in Dixie Chicken Studies.
The Bird – my favorite appellation for her – was a natural match for me in those days: dark and foreboding, but full of life and abounding energy. I spent countless evenings (and afternoons . . . who am I kidding!) shaking bones and drinking from glass pitchers, or sitting on the back porch telling lies holding a longneck bottle. I learned more about the best parts of life standing under dusty trophies of Hill Country bucks and rusted signs, listening to Johnny, Waylon, Willie, and Jerry Jeff, than I could have anywhere else in the world. I formed friendships that will last a lifetime, romances that lasted a few short hours, and sentences that couldn’t survive outside my beer-addled mind. I’ve seen Don’s office – the result of running afoul of his strict no fighting rule – the rattler tank from the inside, and the floor of the men’s room up close and personal. So many nights I’ll never remember, a few I’ll never forget, and some so cloaked in the hazy gauze separating reality from legend that I can’t be sure they actually happened. In the story of my life, The Dixie Chicken is not a setting, she’s a living, breathing, ever-present character. Walking in through the swinging doors or up the steps on the back porch today is like seeing a loved one after too long a separation.
I don’t know if it’s true, what my momma says about me and my misspent semester with the Dixie Chicken, but I can tell you this for sure: I don’t remember a single damn thing I learned in the hallowed halls and erudite classrooms across University Drive in the Spring of 1995, but I’ll never forget the lessons I learned shaking bones, drinking beer, and singing those old country tunes with all my buddies at The Bird.
Thanks and Gig ‘Em!
Nathan J. Bouchér
Fightin’ Texas Aggie Class of 1998
Heavy rain and strong winds led towards disaster...
The story of our roof collapse on May 27, 2020, was featured on Texas Voices.
Kid on a mission...
My husband (’04) and I (’05) loved Aggieland so much, we moved back to College Station in 2015 to raise our family. Now that they’re old enough, we are trying to take the kids to all the Aggieland classics. So, of course we started with lunch at the Dixie Chicken before catching their first Aggie Baseball game! My youngest was so excited to see the famous rattlesnake and was on a mission to see it as soon as we walked in.
– Katie Brading ’05